There is one thing that bugged me massively during my recent exploration trip, and that is that the data available after a discovery scan make little sense.
You enter a system, toot your horn, and after that, the computer obviously has enough data to plot complete orbits of the discovered objects. To do this, the computer needs to have all orbital elements.
These are:
Ignoring for a moment that the latter isn't mentioned at all in the game, it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense that a discovered, but not yet surface scanned object's data on the system map only includes the semi-major axis.
Only after completing the surface scan, we get the rest of the orbital parameters:
I get that things like the rotational period or atmospheric composition are only available after a surface scan, but the orbital parameters are clearly already obtained after the discovery scan.
You enter a system, toot your horn, and after that, the computer obviously has enough data to plot complete orbits of the discovered objects. To do this, the computer needs to have all orbital elements.
These are:
- the semi-major axis (basically the longer of the two "radii" of the elliptical orbit)
- the eccentricity (describes how elliptic the orbit is)
- the inclination (tilt of the orbit relative to the system's reference plane)
- the argument of the periapsis (a second angle describing the orientation of the ellipse)
- the longitude of the ascending node (a third angle describing the orientation of the ellipse)
Ignoring for a moment that the latter isn't mentioned at all in the game, it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense that a discovered, but not yet surface scanned object's data on the system map only includes the semi-major axis.
Only after completing the surface scan, we get the rest of the orbital parameters:
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