Revitalizing Asteroid Belts

[Kiithnaras]

So, with the dynamic signal system and new asteroid mining, I figured we could revisit asteroid belts. Namely, removing the aged, now-pointless, and ill-utilized feature that are the static belt clusters. They give nothing to exploration, and there isn't any significant purpose to them as is over planetary rings.

Instead, these static belt clusters should be replaced with dynamic asteroid signal sources that appear within the asteroid belt regions. These signal sources could have 12 to 24 mineable asteroids. In Pristine-reserve systems, these belts would have a one guaranteed core-mineral asteroid and as many as three. Comparatively, Depleted-reserve systems would be quite lucky to even have one core-mineral rock present.

I've also yet to see - and feel it would be interesting to add - distant icy asteroid belts akin to Sol's Kuiper belt to possible generation in main-sequence star systems.

Lastly, I feel it would be interesting to visually represent these asteroid belts. While they shouldn't be as stark and prominent as planetary rings, they could possibly appear as a faint haze from a great distance (>100 LS) and become less apparent at moderate distances. At closer distances(<1 LS), sparse and sporadic pinpoints of light might even appear showing individual larger asteroids. Near-star metallic belts might even glow slightly due to heating.

Those are my thoughts at least.

 

[varonica]

So, with the dynamic signal system and new asteroid mining, I figured we could revisit asteroid belts. Namely, removing the aged, now-pointless, and ill-utilized feature that are the static belt clusters. They give nothing to exploration, and there isn't any significant purpose to them as is over planetary rings.

Instead, these static belt clusters should be replaced with dynamic asteroid signal sources that appear within the asteroid belt regions. These signal sources could have 12 to 24 mineable asteroids. In Pristine-reserve systems, these belts would have a one guaranteed core-mineral asteroid and as many as three. Comparatively, Depleted-reserve systems would be quite lucky to even have one core-mineral rock present.

I've also yet to see - and feel it would be interesting to add - distant icy asteroid belts akin to Sol's Kuiper belt to possible generation in main-sequence star systems.

Lastly, I feel it would be interesting to visually represent these asteroid belts. While they shouldn't be as stark and prominent as planetary rings, they could possibly appear as a faint haze from a great distance (>100 LS) and become less apparent at moderate distances. At closer distances(<1 LS), sparse and sporadic pinpoints of light might even appear showing individual larger asteroids. Near-star metallic belts might even glow slightly due to heating.

Those are my thoughts at least.

I am afraid you are mostly wrong, one of the aims of FDEV is to create a galaxy that's as realistic as possible and many of your suggestion come from the comic book and sci-fi movie/tv series concept of asteroid belts, they aren't like that at all.

Clusters of asteroids in asteroid belts occur in areas of gravitational balance, Lagrange points of say Jupiter for instance;

The Jupiter trojans, commonly called Trojan asteroids or simply Trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each Trojan librates around one of Jupiter's two stable Lagrange points: L[SUB]4[/SUB], lying 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, and L[SUB]5[/SUB], 60° behind.

So clusters of asteroids do appear in fixed locations in relation to other orbiting bodies.

2) Appear as a faint haze? The entire contents of earths asteroid belts make up approximately 4% of the earths moon by latest estimates, the volume of space occupied by the asteroid belts is enormous, not large, enormous, and given that asteroids form clusters driven by the gravitation effects of the gas giants and there are a few reasonably large ones the average spacing of asteroid is probably something in the order of 1 per thousand cubic kilometers of space, so imagining they would form a hazy ring is completely untenable and unrealistic.

3) There are already a number of kuiper belt object represented in the system map of the solar system in ED, Persephone at 484,590ls is certainly a Kuiper Belt object but FDEV are limited in the number of astronomical objects they can place in one system so future developments may limit them to around the number they already have.

I prefer they err on the side of realistic rather than sci-fi even if it does mean slightly less areas to play in.

 

[Kiithnaras]

So, if that's the case, explain to me how, realistically, asteroid "belts" form less than 10 LS from a stellar corona of a G-type main sequence.

In direct opposition to your claims of realism as well, actual planetary rings comprise matter typically no larger than a person or small car. Rocks twice the size of an Anaconda would be extremely rare and the exception rather than the rule. Planetary rings as a whole are also far less sharp than they are portrayed in game, and gaps are created by small moons that traverse them - something presently absent from ED. Perhaps you'd also like to justify, in a realism sense, the dramatic lack of white dwarf stars outside of central civilized space.

No, Elite is very much sci-fi.

3) There are already a number of kuiper belt object represented in the system map of the solar system in ED, Persephone at 484,590ls is certainly a Kuiper Belt object but FDEV are limited in the number of astronomical objects they can place in one system so future developments may limit them to around the number they already have.

These are a few small objects in one star system out of, what, BILLIONS? No. Sorry, also not realistic. Again - I still have yet to see an Icy-type Stellar-centric Asteroid Belt out past or amidst distant bodies. For good reason, likely, as the current Cluster sites would either have to be crazy-spread out or so numerous it would be impracticable in order to represent an actual belt.

You seem to have entirely missed the point.

You know those obnoxious and mostly-pointless static "Asteroid Cluster" sites that dot about a third of the systems? Yeah, this aims to remove those in favor of dynamic signal sources that spawn in the general regions of asteroid and ice belts instead. This would make things more realistic than they are presently.

Point three was my thoughts on displaying the regions in which to look for or represent visually zones in which asteroid signals would spawn. Just that - my thoughts. I do feel that they should be represented visually, but it doesn't have to be like that. And you don't have to be like that, either.

 

[varonica]

So, if that's the case, explain to me how, realistically, asteroid "belts" form less than 10 LS from a stellar corona of a G-type main sequence.

Asteroid belts stable systems form in areas in areas if gravitational equilibrium, however it's quite possible to have a transient asteroid belt formed from a collision of two bodies or the breakup of a single body, these would last no more than a few hundred years, but you personally wouldn't notice them changing in real time.

In direct opposition to your claims of realism as well, actual planetary rings comprise matter typically no larger than a person or small car. Rocks twice the size of an Anaconda would be extremely rare and the exception rather than the rule. Planetary rings as a whole are also far less sharp than they are portrayed in game, and gaps are created by small moons that traverse them - something presently absent from ED. Perhaps you'd also like to justify, in a realism sense, the dramatic lack of white dwarf stars outside of central civilized space.

Actually if you look up the thread about Shepard Moons you will find they are around in reasonable numbers, however since large gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn can have upward of 100 moons it's impractical to impossible to represent those numbers, they are rarer than they should be, but they exist, so I suggest you are operating from a position of ignorance. I should also point out the size of the objects in a ring depend on the material they are made of, we only have examples icy rings, rocky and metallic rings would have a particle size much larger depending on the distance from the parent planet and the cohesive strengths of the respective material. Also size depends on origin, most of the material of Saturns rings are formed from ejecta from it's moons and varies right down to molecular in size, Saturn's rings actually have their own atmosphere! Be that as it may, a ring system comprised of fragments of a rocky or metallic moon broken up due to the Roche limit would be much larger, Anaconda size even.

No, Elite is very much sci-fi.

Of course it is, but it very much sci-fi in the genre of Apollo 13 and not Star Wars and based an advice from astronomers, cosmologists and NASA, of course it's going to have some unrealistic things since it is a simulaton on current hardware and people are meant to play in it, some departures from strict realism are necessary, such as FTL drive itself.

These are a few small objects in one star system out of, what, BILLIONS? No. Sorry, also not realistic. Again - I still have yet to see an Icy-type Stellar-centric Asteroid Belt out past or amidst distant bodies. For good reason, likely, as the current Cluster sites would either have to be crazy-spread out or so numerous it would be impracticable in order to represent an actual belt.

The maximum number of stellar object the stellar forge can support for a single system is 512, these are the limitations FDEV are required to work within, sorry they can't represent your billion object Oort cloud accurately, you will just have to settle for a few Kuiper Belt objects.

You seem to have entirely missed the point.

Nope.

You know those obnoxious and mostly-pointless static "Asteroid Cluster" sites that dot about a third of the systems? Yeah, this aims to remove those in favor of dynamic signal sources that spawn in the general regions of asteroid and ice belts instead. This would make things more realistic than they are presently.

As unrealisitc as it is possible to be, unless you want to visit one asteroid at a time while mining.

Point three was my thoughts on displaying the regions in which to look for or represent visually zones in which asteroid signals would spawn. Just that - my thoughts. I do feel that they should be represented visually, but it doesn't have to be like that. And you don't have to be like that, either.

Like what? Pointing out that the current representation is more accurate than the one you propose? Pointing out that FDEV are working within the constraints of a computer simulation of a galaxy and not an actual galaxy? You will need to make yourself clearer.