Two suggestions I'd like to see regarding the orbit lines.
1. Shaded Orbit Lines
2. Full Orbit Lines for the barycenter of twin planets.
That's it for my orbit line suggestions, really enjoying the game
Keep it up!
1. Shaded Orbit Lines
Right now, there is no way to tell if the satellite orbiting this planet is closer or further than the planet itself from this image.
So pilots risk dropping deeper into the planet's gravity well than they'd like if the planet is actually closer. Granted, you could target the planet or figure it out easily by looking at the side panel list, but it would be a nice improvement to make the orbit lines more intuitive.
My suggestion is to shade the orbit lines relative to the pilot so that the closer part of the orbit line is visibly brighter than the further part of the orbit line. This would give the line the appearance of having a thickness without actually requiring a polygon and allow someone to look at the dimmer parts and intuitively know it is further away.
In the image above, the satellite is actually closer than the planet, so it would look something like this...only professional:
I thought about various simple methods of calculating the dimming point, and most of them fell apart when you got into the unique perspectives you can get into with 6 degrees of freedom. So you would probably need a few programming rules to calculate it.
My suggestion is to shade the orbit lines relative to the pilot so that the closer part of the orbit line is visibly brighter than the further part of the orbit line. This would give the line the appearance of having a thickness without actually requiring a polygon and allow someone to look at the dimmer parts and intuitively know it is further away.
In the image above, the satellite is actually closer than the planet, so it would look something like this...only professional:
Please note, I simply dashed the line with the color black using my Elite Paint skills. (I can say that cause it's the game's name, right?)
2. Full Orbit Lines for the barycenter of twin planets.
Here's a quick picture I took to illustrate the current lack.
As you can see, the 4th and 5th satellites (D and E) and the 10th and 11th satellites (J-targeted-and K) orbit each other around common barycenters. A barycenter for those not familiar with the term is the point where the two bodies orbit each other due to their mutual attraction. These barycenters in turn orbit the dwarf star in neat precession with all the other satellites but they do not have their own orbit lines. While exploring, counting orbit lines is a simple way identify which planet from the system map you'd like to scan but of course any planet that orbits a barycenter does not have an orbit line to count. Granted, they will allow us to target from the system map at some point but at that point I'd still like these added just for aesthetics.
My suggestion of course is to give the barycenter an orbit line of its own. Since the barycenter's location is already calculated, would it then be possible to create a virtual object that would be invisible to the players but have an orbit line drawn for it? I'm not sure how the galaxy database is setup, but I imagine making an object in there for every system would be a hassle. What about having the clients calculate the objects themselves since the orbit line is only for the Commander anyway? There can't be too many in a single system to cause too much overhead can there?
My suggestion of course is to give the barycenter an orbit line of its own. Since the barycenter's location is already calculated, would it then be possible to create a virtual object that would be invisible to the players but have an orbit line drawn for it? I'm not sure how the galaxy database is setup, but I imagine making an object in there for every system would be a hassle. What about having the clients calculate the objects themselves since the orbit line is only for the Commander anyway? There can't be too many in a single system to cause too much overhead can there?
That's it for my orbit line suggestions, really enjoying the game
Keep it up!
