Do you play with orbit lines on or off?

Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.

Mark Allen

Programmer- Elite: Dangerous
M
jacozilla said:
Speaking of orbital lines - I know what the orbital lines tell me re: celestial body paths, the double orbit pairs lines, the light blue orbits around yellow planet orbit lines indicating it has one or more moons...but one thing I can't figure out unless it's just a special effect added as motion sense -

When I am in SC and traveling any direction, I see these vertical dash lines on either side of my cockpit view - left and right - that moves toward me, with greater frequency period between the small vertical lines as my speed increases.

Are these lines simply there to give motion sense? Or do they indicate something else?
Click to expand...

Yeah those are just to indicate speed. They've been floating around for ages (in the early alphas the same thing was used in FA-off to show horizontal/vertical speed). They're probably due some love to make a little prettier by now, other than anti-aliasing the lines I don't think it's changed since the debuggy thing I added waaaayy back.
 

Javert

Volunteer Moderator
Javert
Mark Allen said:
Yeah those are just to indicate speed. They've been floating around for ages (in the early alphas the same thing was used in FA-off to show horizontal/vertical speed). They're probably due some love to make a little prettier by now, other than anti-aliasing the lines I don't think it's changed since the debuggy thing I added waaaayy back.
Click to expand...

By the way, this is slightly off topic but can anyone tell me a quick summary physics explanation as to why all the planets in systems tend to be on (or close to) the same plane? This seems to be the case in ED and I assume this is realistic, but why? Intuitively I'd expect planets to orbit randomly in a spherical zone around the star, but it seems that there is a tendency for planets to go into roughly the same plane together?
 

Lobstris

Lobstris
Mark Allen said:
Just to note - a keyboard toggle is now also on the TODO list :) (it has been on mental wishlists for a while, now it's a little more formal). Can't promise when as there's a lot more important to deal with, but it's there.
Click to expand...

Keybinds? Are you guys having a change of heart? Will we get keybinds along with that nice, in game HUD colour editor? ;)
.
*Edit* Aside from removing orbit lines, manually editing the XML config file to give a wider field of view has really helped giving me a sense of space and scale in the game.

- - - Updated - - -

Mark Allen said:
Yeah those are just to indicate speed. They've been floating around for ages (in the early alphas the same thing was used in FA-off to show horizontal/vertical speed). They're probably due some love to make a little prettier by now, other than anti-aliasing the lines I don't think it's changed since the debuggy thing I added waaaayy back.
Click to expand...

ADD THEM BACK! ADD THEM BACK! I loved the HUD speed lines in Alpha. :)
 
Last edited:

Mazhurg

Mazhurg
Javert said:
By the way, this is slightly off topic but can anyone tell me a quick summary physics explanation as to why all the planets in systems tend to be on (or close to) the same plane? This seems to be the case in ED and I assume this is realistic, but why? Intuitively I'd expect planets to orbit randomly in a spherical zone around the star, but it seems that there is a tendency for planets to go into roughly the same plane together?
Click to expand...

[video=youtube_share;tmNXKqeUtJM]https://youtu.be/tmNXKqeUtJM[/video]
 

CMDR *malcolm*

C
I've been flying without for ages but recently switched them back on.
Lines off is great for immersion but I still sometime like the line for approach vector and orientation.

.. actually that reminds me to report a bug every time i login the lines are off and I need to re-enable them.
 

Monk

Monk
Depends on what I'm doing. For trading in systems I know well, exploration and general screwing about, I like to keep them off.

When bounty hunting or trading to less familiar systems I like to leave them on as they help me avoid gravity wells.
 

Monk

Monk
Oh...my...well...this is awkward

ummm...something funny....ummm


Well this gives a whole new meaning to mouse and keyboard!
 

FredTA

FredTA
I have them on, I do occasionally turn them off for sightseeing, but I generally prefer them on, I think having the option id great tho, perfect example of FD listening to their players.
 

Zorronov

Zorronov
Javert said:
By the way, this is slightly off topic but can anyone tell me a quick summary physics explanation as to why all the planets in systems tend to be on (or close to) the same plane? This seems to be the case in ED and I assume this is realistic, but why? Intuitively I'd expect planets to orbit randomly in a spherical zone around the star, but it seems that there is a gravitational tendency for planets to go into roughly the same plane together?
Click to expand...

Very brief explanation...it's due to the conservation of angular momentum. In the absence of an external torque, the cloud of dust and gas the planets and stars in a system form from starts spinning faster as it undergoes gravitational contraction. It flattens out into a plane at the same time. It's the same thing that causes a figure skater to spin faster when they pull in their arms. So, as I mentioned earlier, I sometimes turn the orbit lines on to see the system's plane.
 
Last edited:

Cradle2Grave

Banned
Cradle2Grave
Zorronov said:
Very brief explanation...it's due to the conservation of angular momentum. In the absence of an external torque the cloud of dust and gas the planets and stars in a system form from starts spinning faster as it undergoes gravitational contraction. It flattens out into a plane at the same time. It's the same thing that causes a figure skater to spin faster when they pull in their arms. So, as I mentioned earlier, I sometimes turn the orbit lines on to see the system's plane.
Click to expand...

Ah beat me to it
 
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom