Exoplanets
- Thread starter Giskard
- Start date
I think I read somewhere that they intend to keep it updated with newly discovered ones too! 
In addition David somewhere said that they have followed discovery of new planets very closely and their past predictions for FFE for example has been very precise. So they expect to foresee discovery of planets in some cases
I think I read somewhere that they intend to keep it updated with newly discovered ones too!
I'd be interested in seeing how they do that.
We know of 1795 exoplanets in 1114 systems at the moment (Wikipedia). Some of the local systems will be procedurally generated as they don't know about their planets yet. If new information comes in about the planets in that system, but players are used to travelling to that system in the game, how can they then change the system to include the new planet or replace existing ones? That may cause problems!
(I'm sure they've thought of this already, I'm just curious to see how it would work.)
In addition David somewhere said that they have followed discovery of new planets very closely and their past predictions for FFE for example has been very precise. So they expect to foresee discovery of planets in some cases
Really? Do you have a link for that quote? I ask because I would find it very surprising if the planetary systems in FFE looked anything like what we have observed to date. The vast majority of detected planets are 'hot Jupiters' - large gas giants very close to their host star. This came as a big surprise, because it conflicted with the standard view of stellar system formation (previously based on a sample size of one...
So if the planetary systems in FFE look anything like what we currently have observed, it would be extraordinarily prescient, and at the time of the release would have seemed terribly unrealistic. It's been many a year since I've played the game but I seem to remember most stellar systems in the game matching expectations: small rocky planets near the star, and gas giants further out.
Probably they'll just update them for unexplored/unpopulated systems? Of course detections are sometimes retracted too. I'd imagine orbiting a retracted planet could be hazardous :smilie:
The vast majority of new exoplanets currently being announced are coming from Kepler, which was (when it was active) focused on a fairly small region of the sky (though thousands of lightyears deep). So the impact might be fairly limited either way.
That probably depends on how popular that system is which they easily will be able to see from their own metrics. If it is a very popular system that also have started to generate its own lore then they probably leave it alone. If it is a much less visited system they just change it to reflect the latest data.
Really? Do you have a link for that quote? I ask because I would find it very surprising if the planetary systems in FFE looked anything like what we have observed to date. The vast majority of detected planets are 'hot Jupiters' - large gas giants very close to their host star. This came as a big surprise, because it conflicted with the standard view of stellar system formation (previously based on a sample size of one...
It's more like we can't really detect earth-size planets yet so finding big gas giants close to the star is not that surprising.
At the moment we look for changes in the brightness of the star and gravity forces 'pull' on the star. Both is easier to detect if the planet is big / have great mass (hence finding super earths and gas giants).
Yes, quite so, it is definitely a selection effect. But the quote says that the predictions for FFE matches 'the discoveries':
So my point is the existence of hot Jupiters in any number was completely unknown prior to 1995, so to have them in FFE in any number would be surprising. So if this is a genuine quote, DB is either some sort of seer or he has a rather generous definition of 'very precise'