The odds are that you will have seen this video before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q
Pretty awesome isn't it?
Shouldn't Elite be as close as we humans can get to experiencing the majesty of such colossal objects as these? I don't believe the game makes the most of stars at the moment. It feels that their implementation was a (very good) first try which was well received but hasn't seen any improvement since.
Consider the following:
Here I am fresh out of hyperspace in front of HIP 20052 -
View attachment 6116
This vast ball of fusion is a Class G star. It weighs 30% more than Sol and has a slightly larger radius, too. This picture was taken from about 5.5ls out.
This sort of image will be familiar to you from the countless times you have emerged from hyperspace.
It looks a lot like this one:
View attachment 6117
There is however a difference here. This star is Canopus. I travelled there for three reasons.
The first is because my first 3D accelerator was made by a company called Canopus and Elite is my all-time favourite 3D game.
The second is because with only one other system, Canopus is about 30ly from any other inhabited systems.
The third is that Canopus is a little different to Sol, HIP 20052 and most other stars.
Canopus is a supergiant. If you were to take 9 Sols and let them collapse into each other you would have a star that weighted the same as Canopus.
The radius of Canopus is also larger than our sun.
72.4 times larger.
You can tell this when you emerge from hyperspace if you have played the game enough because you emerge at a greater distance (300ls+). Is there majesty in this? Any awe you get about how much larger this is (or any other super/hyper giant) is implied like an impressive stat on a spreadsheet. It doesn't really make your jaw drop though, does it?
Yet these are the very things that Elite should be showcasing. Allowing us to experience. The great objects of our galaxy are the ultimate fruits of exploration, not surface scanning or collecting pennies from Universal Carto.
Consider now how it would be if we were to pop out of hyperspace at a constant distance from the primary.
Sol, HIP 20052 and most other stars would see little change.
Hyperspace in to Canopus, Rigel or VY Canis Majoris and your entire view is filled with the star.
Fuel scooping would be like flying across a vast, flat landscape of plasma.
Think of the view as you sit on a small outpost orbiting one.
You would be in no doubt of the astonishing scale.
It would be majestic. Awesome.
I appreciate there may be technical or lore issues with this. Gameplay considerations perhaps. However might these systems be rare enough to be non-critical to playing the game? At worst something to experience once, then take on warily in future (like a more fun trip to Hutton Orbital)?
I always hoped that Elite would be our galaxy/universe as close as possible to how physics describes but experienced in a way that physics wholly prohibits. Until the majesty of the greatest objects of the galaxy are properly portrayed, it will not fulfil the former.
-----
As it happens, my trip to Canopus was meant to me the staging post for a grander journey.
I wanted to travel to a place called the Crab Nebula. Some time ago a star with a mass a little like that of Canopus exploded, leaving behind this nebula. It also left behind a smaller star. This star is special; it's a neutron star. Comprised mostly of - as the name suggests - neutrons, they are the densest and smallest stars in the known universe and this neutron star has a mass of about 40% more than our sun.
It is 20km in diameter. Basically you can fit a star with more mass than our sun, inside the M25 (London's ring road).
Yet still there is more to this star because sometimes neutron stars can be highly magnetised and sometimes they can spin. When these two things happen they emit electromagnetic radiation. In very, very rare instances they emit visible light.
The Crab Pulsar has a mass of 1.4 suns. It is 20km across, spins 30 times a second and emits visible light.
I want to travel there and feel my ship shake under the rippling of gravitational waves. Have my cockpit bathed in neutron light.
But I think I will wait for a little more thought to go into how physics is portrayed and experienced before making the 6500ly trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q
Pretty awesome isn't it?
Shouldn't Elite be as close as we humans can get to experiencing the majesty of such colossal objects as these? I don't believe the game makes the most of stars at the moment. It feels that their implementation was a (very good) first try which was well received but hasn't seen any improvement since.
Consider the following:
Here I am fresh out of hyperspace in front of HIP 20052 -
View attachment 6116
This vast ball of fusion is a Class G star. It weighs 30% more than Sol and has a slightly larger radius, too. This picture was taken from about 5.5ls out.
This sort of image will be familiar to you from the countless times you have emerged from hyperspace.
It looks a lot like this one:
View attachment 6117
There is however a difference here. This star is Canopus. I travelled there for three reasons.
The first is because my first 3D accelerator was made by a company called Canopus and Elite is my all-time favourite 3D game.
The second is because with only one other system, Canopus is about 30ly from any other inhabited systems.
The third is that Canopus is a little different to Sol, HIP 20052 and most other stars.
Canopus is a supergiant. If you were to take 9 Sols and let them collapse into each other you would have a star that weighted the same as Canopus.
The radius of Canopus is also larger than our sun.
72.4 times larger.
You can tell this when you emerge from hyperspace if you have played the game enough because you emerge at a greater distance (300ls+). Is there majesty in this? Any awe you get about how much larger this is (or any other super/hyper giant) is implied like an impressive stat on a spreadsheet. It doesn't really make your jaw drop though, does it?
Yet these are the very things that Elite should be showcasing. Allowing us to experience. The great objects of our galaxy are the ultimate fruits of exploration, not surface scanning or collecting pennies from Universal Carto.
Consider now how it would be if we were to pop out of hyperspace at a constant distance from the primary.
Sol, HIP 20052 and most other stars would see little change.
Hyperspace in to Canopus, Rigel or VY Canis Majoris and your entire view is filled with the star.
Fuel scooping would be like flying across a vast, flat landscape of plasma.
Think of the view as you sit on a small outpost orbiting one.
You would be in no doubt of the astonishing scale.
It would be majestic. Awesome.
I appreciate there may be technical or lore issues with this. Gameplay considerations perhaps. However might these systems be rare enough to be non-critical to playing the game? At worst something to experience once, then take on warily in future (like a more fun trip to Hutton Orbital)?
I always hoped that Elite would be our galaxy/universe as close as possible to how physics describes but experienced in a way that physics wholly prohibits. Until the majesty of the greatest objects of the galaxy are properly portrayed, it will not fulfil the former.
-----
As it happens, my trip to Canopus was meant to me the staging post for a grander journey.
I wanted to travel to a place called the Crab Nebula. Some time ago a star with a mass a little like that of Canopus exploded, leaving behind this nebula. It also left behind a smaller star. This star is special; it's a neutron star. Comprised mostly of - as the name suggests - neutrons, they are the densest and smallest stars in the known universe and this neutron star has a mass of about 40% more than our sun.
It is 20km in diameter. Basically you can fit a star with more mass than our sun, inside the M25 (London's ring road).
Yet still there is more to this star because sometimes neutron stars can be highly magnetised and sometimes they can spin. When these two things happen they emit electromagnetic radiation. In very, very rare instances they emit visible light.
The Crab Pulsar has a mass of 1.4 suns. It is 20km across, spins 30 times a second and emits visible light.
I want to travel there and feel my ship shake under the rippling of gravitational waves. Have my cockpit bathed in neutron light.
But I think I will wait for a little more thought to go into how physics is portrayed and experienced before making the 6500ly trip.
