^ Go look?
Lol, am averaging 4 hours game time a month at the moment. I'll let you know in 10 years
Are the orbits of the planets physically correct?
- Thread starter burzum
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Lol, am averaging 4 hours game time a month at the moment. I'll let you know in 10 years
Lol, am averaging 4 hours game time a month at the moment. I'll let you know in 10 years
Well, I would totally go look for you .. BUT .. the only references from your images show systems at least 30kly away.. unfortunately, I have the attention span of gnat so I couldn't possi... oooh, shiny.
Star forge that generated PG galaxy uses all fancy math at high level to make orbits plausable and more or less correct. Of course with all fancy checks there's still lot of nice surprises and 'ohhh this shouldn't be possible' scenarios out there (well, it is 400 billion stars after all).
But for gameplay purposes yes, they are as close you can get in space game.
But for gameplay purposes yes, they are as close you can get in space game.
NP. It's certainly a pattern that can be interrupted by requesting a follow up.
The other trick to it is I tend to shut up and listen unless I have something relevant to say.
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Yes and?
Not making much sense wrt the question. Using an algorithm is not the same as being physically correct.
If you've been there, then you can click on the system map and see for yourself. But it should still be there; I've just finished doing a tour of the other four known Glowing White Giants, and they're all still there and still glow super-bright white like that. And if you have the actual system name of that fifth one on file, I can add that one to the list.
To address the issue of the above "glowing white giant" planets generally: there's nothing "unstable" or non-realistic about their orbits. One can argue whether or not a giant planet that hot and that close to a neutron star could ever form, and if they could form how long they'd last before they were dragged off course by the powerful magnetic field or completely evaporated in radiation bombardment, but the orbit itself obeys the laws of physics. Well, Newtonian physics, at least.
If I understand the OP's question correctly - "do the planets in ED obey the laws of physics as we now know them", then yes, for the most part they do, but with some qualifications. The laws in question are simplified Newtonian, not real-world Einsteinian, so (for example) the orbit of Mercury does not show precession because of spacetime curvature (a real-world observation which confused pre-Einsteinian astronomers using Newtonian orbital theories). Black holes and neutron stars bend light, but they don't bend the orbital paths of high-eccentricity objects orbiting them.
Another major discrepancy is that even these Newtonian orbits are simplified down to a series of two-body problems. The many-body problem introduces an element of chaos into planetary orbits which even our best supercomputers have trouble modelling, so all planetary orbits in ED are calculated using two-body equations. For planets orbiting a multiple body, a barycentric virtual mass is calculated, and the planet orbits that as if it were a single object.
This does mean that there are some orbits in ED that would be physically impossible in the real world. For example, I have (very rarely) seen planets orbiting in a very close orbit around two widely spaced suns (the suns might be 300 Ls apart from each other, with a planet orbiting them both out around 700 Ls from the barycentre). Such an orbit would definitely not be long-term stable in the real world, but is stable in ED.
This also means that the ED universe is not "dynamic". Once they are calculated, planetary orbits never change. A planet's orbit is not affected if another large planet swings by it, for example. There are never any "rogue planets" or "rogue stars" smashing their way through a previously stable planetary system. And if two planets actually do collide in ED (a much rarer occasion than it would be in real life, because the stellar forge is supposed to remove the possibility of collisions in the system-calculation stage), they just pass straight through each other and continue on in their orbits. The stellar forge has no mechanism for removing two planets from a system and either merging them together or creating a new asteroid belt or ring system if they happen to collide.
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I'd have to cast some doubt towards many of the binary planets and moons that are orbiting far too close to each other or their parents.
I'd also question the stability of rings around planets that have a binary partner.
In general, I think the orbital mechanics are pretty good, but the likelyhood of some of these systems forming or their stability if they did seems dubious.
I usually write it off as, 'the galaxy is big - pretty much every weird thing will occur at least once at some moment in time'
If only they weren't all beige!
I'd also question the stability of rings around planets that have a binary partner.
In general, I think the orbital mechanics are pretty good, but the likelyhood of some of these systems forming or their stability if they did seems dubious.
I usually write it off as, 'the galaxy is big - pretty much every weird thing will occur at least once at some moment in time'
If only they weren't all beige!
I understand from the video by Dr Ross that FD has tried to emulate orbital mechanics as much as possible, so the answer is both camps are "right" i.e. galaxy is not real because most of it is undiscovered, but Stella Forge does mimic known orbital mechanics using mathematical modelling
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I understand from the video by Dr Ross that FD has tried to emulate orbital mechanics as much as possible, so the answer is both camps are "right" i.e. galaxy is not real because most of it is undiscovered, but Stella Forge does mimic known orbital mechanics using mathematical modelling
Best answer so far imo.
Algorithm uses math which have been used to calculate orbits to be physically correct.
Are you 100% sure?
Algorithms like this use PRNG which relies on a seed value. Which gives repeatable results depending in the seed value. It, according to my understanding of these computer systems, gives a good guess of what might be true. If not there would be no reason to hand craft systems. We are a long way from emulating E. E. Smith's Lensmen. [FONT="]And according to chaos theory it is unlikely that we will be able to.
Worth reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory#Introduction
[/FONT]
He has his own algorithm which gives an approximation of sense, which can be claimed to technically correct.
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"In Elite: Dangerous, when we are generating a system procedurally, each planetary system is formed from first principles. Bodies are gradually aggregated over a very long simulated time from available matter, taking into account its chemical composition. Depending on the angular momentum, this might begin to form into a single central body, or into multiple co-orbiting bodies.
As the gases collapse together under the force of gravity, matter tends to orbit these bodies in protoplanetary discs, which in turn further coalesces into smaller bodies within those discs. Tidal forces, orbital resonances and gradual accretion of mass gradually change their orbits, causing collisions, collapse and close encounters – which in turn means bodies might capture each other or fling each other into new orbits or out of the system altogether.
At some point the stars in the system ignite one by one, and the resultant stellar winds gradually drive off the lighter non-gravitationally bound gases.
Over its lifetime (different for different systems) close and not so close encounters with other stellar systems may remove outer planets and capture others, and the outer halo of comets and other bodies may pass through the other system, not just causing destruction, but also depositing lighter elements and compounds (like ice/water) on the bodies in the inner system that may have been lost during the heat of their formative years, making water-based life there possible.
The above processes are all modelled from first principles for almost all of our 400 billion star systems by an Elite: Dangerous system called Stellar Forge."
- https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=76df98203b#StellarForge
Make of that what you will.
As far as I am concerned; the composition of each system is accurate and their orbital and celestial mechanics are accurately worked out during the generation process.
As the gases collapse together under the force of gravity, matter tends to orbit these bodies in protoplanetary discs, which in turn further coalesces into smaller bodies within those discs. Tidal forces, orbital resonances and gradual accretion of mass gradually change their orbits, causing collisions, collapse and close encounters – which in turn means bodies might capture each other or fling each other into new orbits or out of the system altogether.
At some point the stars in the system ignite one by one, and the resultant stellar winds gradually drive off the lighter non-gravitationally bound gases.
Over its lifetime (different for different systems) close and not so close encounters with other stellar systems may remove outer planets and capture others, and the outer halo of comets and other bodies may pass through the other system, not just causing destruction, but also depositing lighter elements and compounds (like ice/water) on the bodies in the inner system that may have been lost during the heat of their formative years, making water-based life there possible.
The above processes are all modelled from first principles for almost all of our 400 billion star systems by an Elite: Dangerous system called Stellar Forge."
- https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=76df98203b#StellarForge
Make of that what you will.
As far as I am concerned; the composition of each system is accurate and their orbital and celestial mechanics are accurately worked out during the generation process.
When asked early on in development about binary stars that are so close to each other that they orbit each other at very high speed it was stated that this speed would not be simulated accurately as it would not be good for gameplay reasons.
It was also noted, as mentioned previously, that it was impossible to catch some stations as they were moving too fast. I actually raised this as a bug at the time.
My understanding is therefore that the orbits are accurate where the speed is low enough to keep the game playable. But the orbits are inaccurate where the speed necessary to maintain them would make the game unplayable.
That is all.
It was also noted, as mentioned previously, that it was impossible to catch some stations as they were moving too fast. I actually raised this as a bug at the time.
My understanding is therefore that the orbits are accurate where the speed is low enough to keep the game playable. But the orbits are inaccurate where the speed necessary to maintain them would make the game unplayable.
That is all.
Good point here Oss133. It is a game after all. I have actually chased some stations in orbits, takes quite an achievement to reach them.
"All models are wrong but some are useful" - George Box (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong)
Gathering resources in their raw state = harvesting dust from the dust clouds that eventually are pulled together by gravity to form larger objects, e.g. planets.
So it wouldn't be mining as much as it would be "fuel scooping" while flying through a gas/dust cloud.
I'm not an astrophysicist or astronomer, however all the motions are based on gravity rules and those rules determine the motion and orbital mechanics of the galaxy.
Please explain to me, what part of these equations are not correct modeled?
make sense.
No one has said that they are not modelled correctly?
It is the starting conditions that you can't be sure of. From the starting conditions the modelling calculates what systems will look like in the future.
I think FD has done a fantastic job with the Stella Forge. No one is knocking that.
If they could simulate the galaxy with 100% accuracy. It would be a doddle to simulate financial systems and be the rulers of the world. Or they could set up as gods.