Horizons [Suggestion] Black Holes

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Considering the current black holes are harmless lenses,

Can they not be reprogrammed ingame to be "planets" where they have an orbital cruise around them and when you reach a certain distance from them it will boot you out of supercruise with.. say.. 20G pulling you toward the Black hole (increasing to something like 1000G at the "surface")

that way getting too close will be dangerous... and if you are not carefull you can literally get sucked into a zone where your ships thrusters can't escape (something like 50G... I know your brains will be coming out your backside... but we can write that off to our space suite having some pressure mechanic)

Eventually pancaking you into it ( or eject eject when you get to the point where your thrusters can't handle it... your ship then launches you with enough velocity to escape the gravity and while your trusty craft gets sucked in... for lore reasons.. cuz we always need to eject and respawn )

I think this will make black holes more feared and respected for what they really are... invisible balls of death.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Black holes are a bit tricky to show off. If there was an "exclusion zone" appropriate to their mass, they'd be more like neutron stars in that you wouldn't ever get to really see too much of them except for some very faint lensing in the distance when you happen across a big one.

And a nice Space: Above and Beyond reference

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

I want accretion disks where you can find the most rare materials in abundance, but you have to dance around asteroids crashing into each other... and radiation spikes that fry your ship when you try to cross the poles...

And... if you get too close you get sucked in and end up with a 1980's wireframe cobra... in witchspace with 6 motherships closing in...

Oh.. Sorry. That got away from me.

 

[JynxTheMerc]

I have yet to fly out and see my first black hole here on console.

But personally I think it would be neat if it started pulling you in, and even distorting things as you went closer

 

[c00ky1970]

I too would like more dynamism for these wonders of teh universe, accretion disks, event horizons as well as extremes of gravity would all add to the daring-do of visiting a black hole!

It would also be good if the close approach to other stars would be a bit more dramatic, flares erupting, scanner pixellating due to magnetic spikes, black spots. Ie. when you scooped a suns corona you come away going phew thank goodness that's over!

 

[dementia]

The whole visuals around Neutron stars and black holes needs work and has done since the very start. The lensing is ok I guess but it is isn't entirely accurate based on current physics theories. They are still treated as point sources which for Neutrons stars isn't correct. They are still part of this universe so to speak and they have dimensions so they should be able to be seen even if they are ultra white like White Dwarfs albeit only 20Km across.

Granted not all black holes have accretion disks so would be virtually invisible apart from the lensing however in the interest of eye candy I'd make most black holes have them and especially if they share a system with other stars and planets where some sort of disc is more likely.

Frontier should also get rid of this exclusion zone rubbish (or at least allow make it a safety feature of your ship which you as a pilot can choose to disable when you feel ready). When disabled if you go to close you die (and perhaps get treated to an implosion/spagettification death sequence too). That should be true for all stars and black holes. Perhaps even make use of the Engineers for better solar shielding etc so you can get closer without dying (for whatever reason - possible game dynamic option there).

Frontier often say ED is as much a space simulator as it is a 'game' so they should be putting more more effort into the visuals and physics of it than they do currently. All the updates so far have been on the 'game' side which is fine but they should not neglect the other side. Time for the simulator to get a major visuals and physics upgrade!

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I too would like more dynamism for these wonders of teh universe, accretion disks, event horizons as well as extremes of gravity would all add to the daring-do of visiting a black hole!

It would also be good if the close approach to other stars would be a bit more dramatic, flares erupting, scanner pixellating due to magnetic spikes, black spots. Ie. when you scooped a suns corona you come away going phew thank goodness that's over!

Exactly my thinking too. +1

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I want accretion disks where you can find the most rare materials in abundance, but you have to dance around asteroids crashing into each other... and radiation spikes that fry your ship when you try to cross the poles...

And... if you get too close you get sucked in and end up with a 1980's wireframe cobra... in witchspace with 6 motherships closing in...

Oh.. Sorry. That got away from me.

6 Thargoids more like!

 

[Slugsie]

The whole visuals around Neutron stars and black holes needs work and has done since the very start. The lensing is ok I guess but it is isn't entirely accurate based on current physics theories. They are still treated as point sources which for Neutrons stars isn't correct. They are still part of this universe so to speak and they have dimensions so they should be able to be seen even if they are ultra white like White Dwarfs albeit only 20Km across.

I'm not sure exactly what you expect of a Neutron star. A typical Neutron star (IRL) is around 11km in diameter. In ED the safety buffer (that knocks you out of SC) is around 0.22Ls - or roughly 65,000km. Typically Neutron stars don't emit a lot of visible light, so a dim 11km wide object viewed from 65,000km away won't look like much more than a point source.

 

[dementia]

I'm not sure exactly what you expect of a Neutron star. A typical Neutron star (IRL) is around 11km in diameter. In ED the safety buffer (that knocks you out of SC) is around 0.22Ls - or roughly 65,000km. Typically Neutron stars don't emit a lot of visible light, so a dim 11km wide object viewed from 65,000km away won't look like much more than a point source.

What is your source that they wouldn't emit a lot light? My reading and understanding of Neutron stars is very different to yours. Hell the entire Crab nebula (in the real world - about 10ly) is lit up by the Crab Pulsar in the centre (visible light part of the EM spectrum included)! That is one mighty bright object and whole lot of light output boasting a luminosity about 75,000 times greater than that of the Sun!

Not bad for a compact object that is about 28-30km in diameter (yes Neutron stars can vary in the diameter just as normal stars do).

Even at 65,000km, you would see it.

 

[Slugsie]

Wikipedia.

Neutron star radiation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#Spectra

(Very short) List of known Visible Light Pulsars:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_pulsar

Crab Pulsar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Pulsar

The Crab Pulsar is one of very few pulsars to be identified optically.

A 20km wide object at 65,000km is still virtually a point source. An incredibly bright one for sure, but a point one none the less. I've never yet found a Neutron star that wasn't visible. Indeed I found one last night that lit up it's own nebula with a very pretty blue gas cloud.