Atmospheric operation

Devs,

We can't land on planets with an atmosphere, but we can land in stations, and stations have an atmosphere...

Please explain the reason why one atmosphere is OK, and the other not OK.

Thanks
 
We can't land on planets with atmospheres because it hasn't been developed or programmed yet. Nothing says we couldn't, we just can't right now.

I don't think stations have an 'atmosphere' in the main landing area anyway.
 
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Oh man :D

Look it's not atmosphere that's the issue here! It's the vast additional programming that needs doing for realistically rendering the planets atmosphere when landing. Until they do that then we can't land on planets with an atmosphere!

This thread made me laugh though, so thanks :)

EDIT Ninja'd :D
 
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We can't land on planets with atmospheres because it hasn't been developed or programmed yet. Nothing says we couldn't, we just can't right now.

I don't think stations have an 'atmosphere' in the main landing area anyway.
If you go in with broken canopy, it says, Atmosphere restored, as soon as you pass the mail slot. They have atmospheres, but not the same as planets etc.
 
I'm not an FD developer but I know that planets with atmosphere require a lot of graphics development to do more than simply render a static view. To render a planet with life will take a lot of effort. It needs realistic plants that move with water and rain, bodies of water that move realistically, wild animals that do their thing in unpopulated areas, cities with people/traffic/lighting that changes with time of day, weather with realistic patterns for storms/rain/snow/wind in various parts of the planet. Also, the ships needs to respond appropriately in the varying weather - cross winds, up drafts, down drafts, rain, lightning, storms. And all this must be procedurally generated based on the existing characteristics within the stellar forge so that the planets don't look like carbon copies of each other.
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In short, a station's atmosphere is tightly controlled and unchanging - no weather, no people, no animals, no plants (well almost) while a planet's atmosphere is uncontrolled. This single difference makes the job incredibly hard.
 
If you go in with broken canopy, it says, Atmosphere restored, as soon as you pass the mail slot. They have atmospheres, but not the same as planets etc.

Very good point.

I guess that's what the blue light/force field does in the slot, keeps the gases in and radiation out.
 
It's pretty clear that adding planets with a believable dynamic weather system is no simple task. Creating an environment that won't kill fps is a challenge in itself.

Our ships can happily fly through a star's corona, land on 10g worlds. The issue is definitely not about our ships having the capability to enter a planet's atmosphere, that is the least of the devs worry's.
 
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I'm not an FD developer but I know that planets with atmosphere require a lot of graphics development to do more than simply render a static view. To render a planet with life will take a lot of effort. It needs realistic plants that move with water and rain, bodies of water that move realistically, wild animals that do their thing in unpopulated areas, cities with people/traffic/lighting that changes with time of day, weather with realistic patterns for storms/rain/snow/wind in various parts of the planet. Also, the ships needs to respond appropriately in the varying weather - cross winds, up drafts, down drafts, rain, lightning, storms. And all this must be procedurally generated based on the existing characteristics within the stellar forge so that the planets don't look like carbon copies of each other.
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In short, a station's atmosphere is tightly controlled and unchanging - no weather, no people, no animals, no plants (well almost) while a planet's atmosphere is uncontrolled. This single difference makes the job incredibly hard.
An unknown God managed it about 5000 years ago, it's about time man caught up?
 
I'm not an FD developer but I know that planets with atmosphere require a lot of graphics development to do more than simply render a static view. To render a planet with life will take a lot of effort. It needs realistic plants that move with water and rain, bodies of water that move realistically, wild animals that do their thing in unpopulated areas, cities with people/traffic/lighting that changes with time of day, weather with realistic patterns for storms/rain/snow/wind in various parts of the planet. Also, the ships needs to respond appropriately in the varying weather - cross winds, up drafts, down drafts, rain, lightning, storms. And all this must be procedurally generated based on the existing characteristics within the stellar forge so that the planets don't look like carbon copies of each other.
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In short, a station's atmosphere is tightly controlled and unchanging - no weather, no people, no animals, no plants (well almost) while a planet's atmosphere is uncontrolled. This single difference makes the job incredibly hard.

You know I fully expect atmospheric planetary interactions to be staged as well. Fly through Gas Giants clouds will be one, landing on planets with atmospheres but no life another. All leading up to the most complex - Earth likes with habitation, flora and fauna, living tidal seas, rivers, volcanic activity and a myriad of environments/weather systems. Now that's going to be tough!
 
I don't think it is only on the graphical aspect, but atmospheric flying is something that requires sustainability on the ship wings, including drag, lift and all those kind of physics that will make some ships not suitable for some planets and others fly like planes.. that is what the atmosphere does to flying and not only providing oxygen to the cockpit.

I think.. I'd like to think.. not to mention heat re-entry..
 
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Even lifeless planets with an atmosphere should be a nightmare to make. The chemical compositions of land, sea, and air, combined with gravity, revolution- and orbit speeds, and gravitational- and thermal influence by neighbouring bodies, sums up to a staggering amount of complexity in how weather systems develop and manifest, and how erosion (EDIT: ...and sedimentation) shapes the landscape.
 
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Even lifeless planets with an atmosphere should be a nightmare to make. The chemical compositions of land, sea, and air, combined with gravity, revolution- and orbit speeds, and gravitational- and thermal influence by neighbouring bodies, sums up to a staggering amount of complexity in how weather systems develop and manifest, and how erosion (EDIT: ...and sedimentation) shapes the landscape.

I am pretty sure that that atmospheres in ED won't be nearly as much complex. It's a game, not meteo-sim.
 
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I am pretty sure that that atmospheres in ED won't be nearly as much complex. It's a game, not meteo-sim.

Games programming is all smoke and mirrors, it won't be anywhere near the complexity of a real planets weather system but it'll be made to feel like one and, trust me, that's plenty complex enough to take an age to program :)
 
I am pretty sure that that atmospheres in ED won't be nearly as much complex. It's a game, not meteo-sim.

Oh, I am absolutely sure there won't much, if any at all, in the way of actual scientific simulation, that builds the planet from first principles and goes through its history, and so on, nor actual real flow dynamics governing the winds we'll be dealing with.

This, however, just means there will be that much more work to "by hand", in building the algorithms and assets, and balancing the scales, limits, influences, and seeds, that can produce passably convincing facsimilies of the real thing, for a wide variety of situations. (EDIT: Still; I do expect to see winds speed up over mountain tops, and turbulence on their leesides. I do expect layers with different air velocity, and maybe, just very very maybe, even some degree of things like rising pressures (EDIT2: ...and cloud formation (basically affecting a density map - nothing like actually tracking vapour throughout the atmosphere :p)) over heating and tide-receiving coasts, causing onshore winds.)
 
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