Horizons "It's a small World..."

[JetJaguar]

I know there is a thread for big land-able bodies, but I personally love finding the smallest possible bodies to land on and drive about. They often have extreme features or are misshapen, potato like, worlds! What are the smallest land-able worlds you have found? The smallest I have found so far is a radius of 195km.

Here is a list of the smallest land-able worlds I have found and some screen shots:

Radius: 405km
Address: Brani/Brani 2

Spoiler

Radius:370km
Address: PA PARA / A / 1

Spoiler

Radius: 232km
Address: Ongkampan / 1

Spoiler

Radius: 195km
Address: COL 285 Sector PD-S C4-11 / 1

Spoiler

 

[Marcus Machiavelli]

cool thread! me loves me some potatoes!

 

[Steve Solo]

I agree. For some reason these over-sized asteroids are truly fascinating....

 

[Winterwalker]

Really like the last one. That huge crater would have had truly cataclysmic effect on such a small body.
It looks like an engine almost?? Seems to me that an impact like that would have drastcally shifted the moon.
Unlikely then, that Ongkampan / 1 is orbiting now, where it first formed?

+1 Thanks for logging.

 

[Kicks]

Great stuff! +1.

I love the fact that, all this time on, there's new threads, showing interesting stuff, by an experienced commander, in the starter ship

 

[Hilight]

Excellent finds OP. Small moons look to be very interesting. R+ for you

 

[JetJaguar]

"It's a small World..." - New Record Smallest World Discovered

Update.....

I have found a new personal record for smallest landable body:


Radius: 195km
Address: COL 285 Sector PD-S C4-11 / 1

Spoiler

It is surprisingly spherical, which is a little disappointing. But it is still an interesting place to visit. Notice in the first screen shot that I am actually in orbital flight, even though it looks like I am still quite far away. This gives you an idea of it's scale! The other nice thing about this world is how low its gravity is; 0.05g. Very fun to drive around on. You can go large distances never touching the ground in your SRV

Are there any other known worlds with gravity lower than this?

 

[Devari]

I know there is a thread for big land-able bodies, but I personally love finding the smallest possible bodies to land on and drive about. They often have extreme features or are misshapen, potato like, worlds! What are the smallest land-able worlds you have found? The smallest I have found so far is a radius of 195km.

Very interesting finds there, I'm actually quite surprized that FD has programmed these planets to be irregularly shaped. I wonder if that is inherent in the procedural generation model as a "threshold" where a smaller planet will develop that way, or if it's an "override" they programmed so that the procedural generation model will always give a smaller planet some "irregularity". I suspect that for simplicity it was simply programmed as a stochastic "all or nothing" property rather than a deterministic variable that gradually changes as a planet's size changes. Sort of how Earth-like worlds are "generated" with a "landmass" property while Water worlds have only water, with nothing in-between. I'm actually quite interested in these types of planetary properties (particularly on worlds with life) as I've found the limits and flaws in the procedural generation system to be quite surprising at times. I've found from studying the planetary properties on my exploration trips that the process is much less "random" than you might expect.

Are there any other known worlds with gravity lower than this?

I have been on several gas giant moons with surface gravity as low as 0.03 g, they have typically been ice worlds however. The surface gravity calculations in Elite can be rather surprising at times because of the planetary properties that can give planets quite substantial differences in terms of their composition. Some metal-rich or high-metal content worlds can be surprisingly dense for their size and the planetary properties even list certain worlds as "100% metallic" which is obviously not possible given their size. I consider this a "bug" in the planetary generation but it is probably "working as intended" as FD probably programmed the procedural generation model to produce these unrealistic results without realizing that a 5000 km diameter planet is simply never going to be 100% metal (they also have quite a few bugs with the atmospheric properties as well but we can't land on planets with atmospheres yet). As a result these larger metal-rich or high metal content worlds often have higher gravities, such as the ones in the Deciat system with around 1.5-2 g. The larger ice planets in contrast can actually still have moderate surface gravities because of their size but most of the smaller ice planets around gas giants are both small and not very dense, which is why I've seen 0.03 g fairly commonly on those planets. Driving the SRV for mats on the 0.03 g planets (which for some unfathomable reason are often listed in Galnet as being good sources of selenium) is actually rather amusing because it's actually your SRV's thrusters, and not the surface gravity, that provides most of the "downforce" that keeps your SRV on the surface allows you to actually drive around. When you shoot rocks for mats however they take 10-20 seconds to fall to the ground on these planets because the gravity is so light.

 

[JetJaguar]

Very interesting finds there, I'm actually quite surprized that FD has programmed these planets to be irregularly shaped. I wonder if that is inherent in the procedural generation model as a "threshold" where a smaller planet will develop that way, or if it's an "override" they programmed so that the procedural generation model will always give a smaller planet some "irregularity". I suspect that for simplicity it was simply programmed as a stochastic "all or nothing" property rather than a deterministic variable that gradually changes as a planet's size changes. Sort of how Earth-like worlds are "generated" with a "landmass" property while Water worlds have only water, with nothing in-between. I'm actually quite interested in these types of planetary properties (particularly on worlds with life) as I've found the limits and flaws in the procedural generation system to be quite surprising at times. I've found from studying the planetary properties on my exploration trips that the process is much less "random" than you might expect.



I have been on several gas giant moons with surface gravity as low as 0.03 g, they have typically been ice worlds however. The surface gravity calculations in Elite can be rather surprising at times because of the planetary properties that can give planets quite substantial differences in terms of their composition. Some metal-rich or high-metal content worlds can be surprisingly dense for their size and the planetary properties even list certain worlds as "100% metallic" which is obviously not possible given their size. I consider this a "bug" in the planetary generation but it is probably "working as intended" as FD probably programmed the procedural generation model to produce these unrealistic results without realizing that a 5000 km diameter planet is simply never going to be 100% metal (they also have quite a few bugs with the atmospheric properties as well but we can't land on planets with atmospheres yet). As a result these larger metal-rich or high metal content worlds often have higher gravities, such as the ones in the Deciat system with around 1.5-2 g. The larger ice planets in contrast can actually still have moderate surface gravities because of their size but most of the smaller ice planets around gas giants are both small and not very dense, which is why I've seen 0.03 g fairly commonly on those planets. Driving the SRV for mats on the 0.03 g planets (which for some unfathomable reason are often listed in Galnet as being good sources of selenium) is actually rather amusing because it's actually your SRV's thrusters, and not the surface gravity, that provides most of the "downforce" that keeps your SRV on the surface allows you to actually drive around. When you shoot rocks for mats however they take 10-20 seconds to fall to the ground on these planets because the gravity is so light.

Interesting info, thanks. With regards the "mis-shapeness" of small bodies, I had thought that maybe even larger worlds have some irregularities and bumps etc, but when the world is this small, the irregularities just look very extreme. I feel I have seen larger worlds that do have some slightly irregular shape, but hard to notice due to their circumference being so big.

I don't think I have been on a 0.03g world yet, I'll have to investigate some icy worlds! It's interesting that ice worlds are nearly always tiny (around 400km) but they never seem to get really small. Eg, all of the smallest ones I have found so far are non ice.

I do wonder just how small these land-able bodies can get!

 

[Devari]

Interesting info, thanks. With regards the "mis-shapeness" of small bodies, I had thought that maybe even larger worlds have some irregularities and bumps etc, but when the world is this small, the irregularities just look very extreme. I feel I have seen larger worlds that do have some slightly irregular shape, but hard to notice due to their circumference being so big.

Technically it should be fairly easy for us to check if FD's programming is showing planetary irregularities "accurately", we just need to find a large planet with a high rotation speed and we should see it "bulge" near the equator due to the rotation. The effect would still be very small and you would probably need to study screen shots in very high resolution but something would probably be detectable with a high enough rotation. I suspect we will be rather disappointed to find that the planets are likely either perfectly symmetrical (regardless of rotation speed) or they suddenly have significant irregularities (small planets that you've found). I've noticed these trends for most planetary properties where the procedural generation system either decides a planet has a given property (which usually shows variability within only a very narrow range) or lacks this feature entirely. So the irregularities we see with those very small planets are probably "cosmetic" in the sense that they were not generated accurately based on size/composition/etc but were simply "overlayed" on top of the other planetary properties.

I don't think I have been on a 0.03g world yet, I'll have to investigate some icy worlds! It's interesting that ice worlds are nearly always tiny (around 400km) but they never seem to get really small. Eg, all of the smallest ones I have found so far are non ice.

I suspect that FD has programmed some "overrides" so that we never get for example a really tiny icy planet, probably because they would be more susceptible to evaporation/sublimation and not be as stable over stellar timeframes compared to rocky worlds. A small rocky body on the other hand could stay in a stable orbit for a very long time essentially unchanged.

I do wonder just how small these land-able bodies can get!

I suspect that they have programmed and arbitrary "threshold" below which the procedural generation system simply won't produce smaller objects below a certain size. It would be interesting to see what that limit is, I suspect based on what you've found that it is probably around 100 km radius as below this you would probably drop below 0.03 g which seems to be the lower limit for surface gravity on "landable" planets. I suspect that it is an abrupt "cutoff" programmed into the system as well to maintain a clear distinction between "planets" and planetary rings. You might have noticed that all the asteroids we see around gas giants are actually quite uniform and sometimes quite a bit larger than they should be, which was presumably done for gameplay purposes. For example, although Saturn's rings are known to be quite variable in thickness (anywhere from 10 m to over 1 km) we only see very uniform rings around gas giants in Elite and any time you enter a RES site it is always a uniform thickness with a similar size of asteroids, no small/tiny boulders or dust to fly through.

 

[Chris Simon]

Technically it should be fairly easy for us to check if FD's programming is showing planetary irregularities "accurately", we just need to find a large planet with a high rotation speed and we should see it "bulge" near the equator due to the rotation. The effect would still be very small and you would probably need to study screen shots in very high resolution but something would probably be detectable with a high enough rotation. I suspect we will be rather disappointed to find that the planets are likely either perfectly symmetrical (regardless of rotation speed) or they suddenly have significant irregularities (small planets that you've found). I've noticed these trends for most planetary properties where the procedural generation system either decides a planet has a given property (which usually shows variability within only a very narrow range) or lacks this feature entirely. So the irregularities we see with those very small planets are probably "cosmetic" in the sense that they were not generated accurately based on size/composition/etc but were simply "overlayed" on top of the other planetary properties.



I suspect that FD has programmed some "overrides" so that we never get for example a really tiny icy planet, probably because they would be more susceptible to evaporation/sublimation and not be as stable over stellar timeframes compared to rocky worlds. A small rocky body on the other hand could stay in a stable orbit for a very long time essentially unchanged.



I suspect that they have programmed and arbitrary "threshold" below which the procedural generation system simply won't produce smaller objects below a certain size. It would be interesting to see what that limit is, I suspect based on what you've found that it is probably around 100 km radius as below this you would probably drop below 0.03 g which seems to be the lower limit for surface gravity on "landable" planets. I suspect that it is an abrupt "cutoff" programmed into the system as well to maintain a clear distinction between "planets" and planetary rings. You might have noticed that all the asteroids we see around gas giants are actually quite uniform and sometimes quite a bit larger than they should be, which was presumably done for gameplay purposes. For example, although Saturn's rings are known to be quite variable in thickness (anywhere from 10 m to over 1 km) we only see very uniform rings around gas giants in Elite and any time you enter a RES site it is always a uniform thickness with a similar size of asteroids, no small/tiny boulders or dust to fly through.

The ring systems are unrealistic for gameplay purposes. "Normal" RL rings consist mostly of dust and really small grain, like you suggested, with occasional boulder no larger than 1m, because the ring is "alive" there is a constant movement and every larger object caught in the system is sooner or later ground to dust.
But that wouldn't be fun, fighting in that. We rather race around "proper" asteroids.

I would also like to clarify what you hinted with the surface gravity, but never finished the thought. The surface gravity depends on the ratio between mass and diameter of the planet, which is why Earth-sized iceball has 0.4g and 3000km metallic planet can have 2g.

Oh, and in your previous post you've mentioned having to wait for the mats to fall back down for dozens of seconds - Try scooping them mid-air. It's great fun!

 

[Devari]

The ring systems are unrealistic for gameplay purposes. "Normal" RL rings consist mostly of dust and really small grain, like you suggested, with occasional boulder no larger than 1m, because the ring is "alive" there is a constant movement and every larger object caught in the system is sooner or later ground to dust.
But that wouldn't be fun, fighting in that. We rather race around "proper" asteroids.

Yeah, I grew up playing Wing Commander so I've been conditioned to "expect" boulder-sized asteroids, when the reality is that I would just be pushing my ship through a thin layer of tiny dust and small fragments that my shields and heavily-armored hull would easily deflect.

I would also like to clarify what you hinted with the surface gravity, but never finished the thought. The surface gravity depends on the ratio between mass and diameter of the planet, which is why Earth-sized iceball has 0.4g and 3000km metallic planet can have 2g.

Yes, exactly, it's related to both density and radius. The issue though with some of the metal-rich planets is that they are sometimes modelled with nearly "100% metal content" which makes them unrealistically dense as you would never have a pure metal "planet". The larger versions of these planets can quickly get ridiculous with regards to surface gravity (well over 3 g or more) but fortunately the procedural generation model tends to cap the size of the metal-rich and high-metal content worlds so most of them don't exceed 2.5 g or so.

Oh, and in your previous post you've mentioned having to wait for the mats to fall back down for dozens of seconds - Try scooping them mid-air. It's great fun!

I haven't tried that yet, I may go back to those 0.03 g planets some time to try it, at this point I try to avoid planets under 0.4 g or so because I find the driving and mat gathering is just too slow on the low-g planets. I actually prefer the high-g worlds (1.5-2 g) for mat gathering as I take far less damage when driving at high speed due to much less "bouncing". I don't think that the collision model on planets is very accurate as I seem to take much higher damage from "falls" on low-g worlds than I should based on the low gravity.

 

[Chris Simon]

Yes, exactly, it's related to both density and radius. The issue though with some of the metal-rich planets is that they are sometimes modelled with nearly "100% metal content" which makes them unrealistically dense as you would never have a pure metal "planet". The larger versions of these planets can quickly get ridiculous with regards to surface gravity (well over 3 g or more) but fortunately the procedural generation model tends to cap the size of the metal-rich and high-metal content worlds so most of them don't exceed 2.5 g or so.

True. Well, technically I think it could be possible that some planet with metallic core gets stripped of its upper layers by a huge collisions or something and then the core cools down. Then it would be a 100% metallic planet (until stuff starts falling on it, again), but like you said it would
a) be quite small
b) be quite rare

So yeah, metallic planets are a bit fishy. Unless 100% metallic means something different, like, for example, it could mean that 100% of the "soil" contains metallic elements, or something like that. But that's kind of apologetic.

 

[Devari]

So yeah, metallic planets are a bit fishy. Unless 100% metallic means something different, like, for example, it could mean that 100% of the "soil" contains metallic elements, or something like that. But that's kind of apologetic.

I'm pretty sure it's a limitation of their procedural generation model that they didn't try to fix or didn't realize would be a problem. There are also lots of inconsistencies and errors with planetary atmospheres as well which again I assume is a flaw in their procedural generation algorithm. I have encountered many planets with for example an Atmosphere Type of "Ammonia and Oxygen" and then later on see "98% Carbon Dioxide" but no ammonia or oxygen listed anywhere for the planet's atmospheric composition. I think these issues are likely hardwired into the procedural generation algorithm and probably aren't readily "fixable" without adjusting or re-writing significant parts of that algorithm so unfortunately we are probably stuck with these issues.