Tenuous Atmospheres: How Will They Work...?

[thistle]

As others have observed, in the Sol system the bodies that have what astronomers might call a "tenuous" atmosphere mostly are landable and are classified as airless in-game. And that makes sense, all those geologically active bodies with geysers and such like would certainly have those extremely thin atmospheres made up of the vapor component of whatever is in those jets. All of those bodies would have the sort of black sky and at most local haze that we see on landable bodies today.

In game, there are planets that are described as "tenuous" atmosphere in the system map, which I think is how it represents atmospheres with less than 0.01 atm surface pressure. This is actually reasonably thick by astronomical standards - thicker than what Mars has today. Those bodies would have blue (or other colors!) skies, clouds, dust storms, aurorae and other weather-like phenomena. However, despite what The Martian might suggest, those worlds will usually not have an atmosphere dense enough for wind to be perceptible, nor to produce precipitation or storms. They would however often be thick enough to produce noticeable reentry heating effects at high speed, so there's the possibility of interesting approach effects.

I heartily approve of this post.

 

[VR Golgot]

In game, there are planets that are described as "tenuous" atmosphere in the system map

Hah, damn, didn’t know this was a thing either

Would be interesting to see if it correlates with the 'thin' terminology from the journal.

Looks like that’s our metric for which planets could be unlocked right there though

Over the last year or so, I have done some digging into the exospheres on landable planets that exist currently in the game, and the cutoff appears to be right at 99.99 pascals, or roughly 1/5 of real life Mars.

This is the science we needed! Nice one!

I don’t suppose you’ve written up any of your findings anywhere?

 

[Viajero]

the trailer looks weaker from space than the one in the overclockers image.

You mean more tenuous, surely

 

[Old Duck]

Not the "city" I was expecting, but still worthy of some screenshots:

 

[Lightspeed]

Not the "city" I was expecting, but still worthy of some screenshots:

View attachment 178808


View attachment 178809


View attachment 178810

There's definitely a psychology at play here: they just look more inviting and 'realistic.'

 

[Lightspeed]

As an aside to the tenuous atmospheres in Odyssey, Wiki notes that :
Tritium occurs naturally due to cosmic rays interacting with atmospheric gases. In the most important reaction for natural production, a fast neutron interacts with atmospheric nitrogen.

So there is potential in the game for us to scoop tritium.

 

[Old Duck]

I just caught this Dolphin landing. Looks great!

BTW, my "atmospheric worlds" work in VR

 

[thistle]

You mean more tenuous, surely

No!

Yes.

 

[Flimley]

. Hanging on by a thread tenuous

i am Flimley

 

[VR Golgot]

Actually, they already do, and sometimes very strongly, depending on ship geometry:

That's all in the closed pre-pre-Alpha Evocati build at the moment, not in the game. Let's wait and see whether it's actually any good before claiming it is

Now do you have anything to say about the thread topic?

 

[VR Golgot]

If anyone's got some examples of 'tenuous' atmospheres listed in game that'd be great. I can't see any obvious examples just from an online search. (I'm only seeing 'No atmosphere' listings or a percentage breakdown of constituents if there is an atmos, in the System map info panel).

So I'm having a quick scoot around EDSM instead, as it lists atmospheres as 'thin' (which presumably is that same 'thin' as the journal terminology)

IE:

Pluto

Surface pressure:0.00406850 Atmospheres
Atmosphere:Thin Methane
Atmosphere composition:
50.00% Methane
50.00% Nitrogen

Eravate 3

Surface pressure: 0.02565205 Atmospheres
Atmosphere:Thin Carbon dioxide
Atmosphere composition:
81.76% Carbon dioxide
18.24% Sulphur dioxide

Shinrarta Dezhra A 2

Surface pressure: 0.04223438 Atmospheres
Atmosphere: Hot thin Carbon dioxide
Atmosphere composition:
83.82% Carbon dioxide
16.18% Sulphur dioxide

Interesting that there's a tag for heat in there as well. IE: 'Hot thin carbon dioxide'. (Planet itself seems potentially accessible too. No vulcanism, made of rock / metal / ice etc). Haven't had time to check whether it's applied to existing accessible planets.

I guess what could be cool is if someone knew how to scrape the info to get the full range of atmospheric pressures for 'thin' planets. (Plus compare / contrasts any other novel tags that only occur with 'thin' atmospheres, but not in the lower pressure ranges). Anyone got the skills?

 

[Defacto]

As an aside to the tenuous atmospheres in Odyssey, Wiki notes that :
Tritium occurs naturally due to cosmic rays interacting with atmospheric gases. In the most important reaction for natural production, a fast neutron interacts with atmospheric nitrogen.

So there is potential in the game for us to scoop tritium.

At a natural abundance of 10^-18, you are going to scoop for a looooong time though
But... correct me if I'm wrong, but with a half life of 12 years, natural 'tritium deposits' like we see ingame are complete nonsense, at least in a typical ice ring. So I would care more about gameplay reasoning for justifying scoopable tritium in the first place.

 

[Iskariot]

I'd be already happy when they would include wind and aerodynamics to the planets. Just some instability during flight, different with every ship, so you have to learn how to fly your ships in atmosphere. Of course denser atmospheres and higher winds would have a greater effect.

Don't forget about the sand storms. We must have sand storms.

 

[Vardaugas]

Don't forget about the sand storms. We must have sand storms.

Just trying to land but there's a sandstorm over the target port. Visibility is zero. Turning night vision on is better but still a lot of white noise. The ship gets pushed and shoved around by 500 km/h gust. The autopilot refuses service. There's the choice to make: Abort landing and wait for the sandstorm to pass in orbit and forgo the time bonus or risk your ship and land.

Now that is gameplay.

 

[thistle]

I have a pity about waiting 3 years for skybox gradient which will not affect anything.
Just because tenuous atmospheres have no absolutely any way to affect ships. Even if those atmospheres would have temperatures like thousands of celsium degrees - that would barely warm ship hull, because of too small atmosphere density, and hence heat capacity, and hence heat amount applied to ship.
As to drag/aerodynamic forces - with such atmospheres those will be literally undetectable without precise instruments.
So... yes, 3 years for skybox gradients. And FPS/social hubs.
What to say else?

Why aren't you enjoying your game rather than this?

 

[VR Golgot]

I have a pity about waiting 3 years for skybox gradient which will not affect anything.
Just because tenuous atmospheres have no absolutely any way to affect ships. Even if those atmospheres would have temperatures like thousands of celsium degrees - that would barely warm ship hull, because of too small atmosphere density, and hence heat capacity, and hence heat amount applied to ship.
As to drag/aerodynamic forces - with such atmospheres those will be literally undetectable without precise instruments.
So... yes, 3 years for skybox gradients. And FPS/social hubs.
What to say else?

It's just as silly to decry something as terrible before it's out, as it is to laud something ecstatically before it's out

(Aside from anything else, if you'd been paying attention to the thread you'd see there's still a chance that FDev's metric for 'tenuous' may include thicker atmospheres than the scientific definition. So it's probably too soon to presume zero influence on the flight model or impact on flight gameplay).

 

[sandkid]

Actually, they already do, and sometimes very strongly, depending on ship geometry:



So... Flight model in ED can be more "fun" and gameplay-wise consistent. But it's definitely already far behind SC's one in terms of realism and simulation detail.

Even before these atmospheric-related extensions, in SC you already could disable for example maneuvering thrusters one-by-one, and absence of each of them provided exactly expected lack of impulse in certain direction. For example after disabling all top-left thrusters, you could still normally accelerate ship "UP", but if you tried accelerate ship "DOWN", or stop it when it was moving "UP" - when top thrusters had to fire - ship started rotating clockwise, because disabled top-left thrusters didn't provide their input.

Or you could decrease thrusters (again, on a per-thruster basis) max thrust, and feel that in ship handling. For example, many say that ships in SC feel like "made of paper". Well, that's just because of insane thrusters power, temporarily set for all ships.
But you can decrease their max output to, like, 20% - and suddenly all ships in SC will handle very similarly to ED, feeling huge, heavy, with a lot of inertia, etc.
Players just don't care about it, keeping thrusters at default max output, and devs don't care about balancing thrusters while game is in development yet.
But still - SC flight model is more comprehensive, just because it "includes" ED flight model as its part, if you decrease thrusters output. But also suggests much more.

Especially now, with these improvements to atmospheric flight.

Ah, see, I did not know that. Someone else quoted my post mentioning that Elite already has movement effects, too - Explosions in space stations being a good example - so implementation in Elite technically exists already. That gives me hope for Odyssey expanding our flight model - or maybe it's more accurate to say diversifying it. I'm excited for space legs, but the flight sim can always use more love (not because it's lacking, but because it is such a central feature).

 

[VR Golgot]

You just named "silly" half of the FD forum members, heh.

Oh I’m happy to stand by that

Ecstatic expectations and hopes. Delivering since 2015. FDev (and fans) never change

Erm, I recognise my OP was long here, but if you think it amounts to 'Ecstatic expectations and hopes', then you clearly didn’t read it...

I am merely saying it’s too soon to decide whether it’s good or bad. Need to actually play it for that. (I find it’s a better approach than just reading out a first-draft feature list and cheering / despairing in advance...)

 

[Old Duck]

Actually, they already do, and sometimes very strongly, depending on ship geometry:



So... Flight model in ED can be more "fun" and gameplay-wise consistent. But it's definitely already far behind SC's one in terms of realism and simulation detail.

Even before these atmospheric-related extensions, in SC you already could disable for example maneuvering thrusters one-by-one, and absence of each of them provided exactly expected lack of impulse in certain direction. For example after disabling all top-left thrusters, you could still normally accelerate ship "UP", but if you tried accelerate ship "DOWN", or stop it when it was moving "UP" - when top thrusters had to fire - ship started rotating clockwise, because disabled top-left thrusters didn't provide their input.

Or you could decrease thrusters (again, on a per-thruster basis) max thrust, and feel that in ship handling. For example, many say that ships in SC feel like "made of paper". Well, that's just because of insane thrusters power, temporarily set for all ships.
But you can decrease their max output to, like, 20% - and suddenly all ships in SC will handle very similarly to ED, feeling huge, heavy, with a lot of inertia, etc.
Players just don't care about it, keeping thrusters at default max output, and devs don't care about balancing thrusters while game is in development yet.
But still - SC flight model is more comprehensive, just because it "includes" ED flight model as its part, if you decrease thrusters output. But also suggests much more.

Especially now, with these improvements to atmospheric flight.

I keep reading that SC is rubbish, but then I see a post like this and think, "Well that sounds cool to me!" So which is it?

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Don't forget about the sand storms. We must have sand storms.

Beige for Beige-God!