What cutoff criteria does Elite use for moons? size? (Most moons aren't generated, compared to solar system))
Large planets have a lot of moons. Eg Saturn and Jupiter both have over 60 moons each, and our solar system has over 1600 "minor planets" (TNO's like Pluto and Eris) whereas in Elite's star systems, large planets never have more than about a dozen moons, and planet numbers are limited to a more Galilean scope.
I'm guessing the criteria (for moons at least) is size - Elite's procedural algorithms presumably only bother with moons above a certain size, which greatly cuts down the number of objects in the system (streamlining both gameplay and CPU), and also ensures that all objects in supercruise are spherical, which presumably simplifies things too.
Does anyone happen to know what and where the cutoff criteria is? If it's simple size or mass, is there a diameter or mass? Or is it something more complex (like size/mass/composition calculation that checks it's big enough to be a sphere?)
No real reason for my question, just curious. (There's so much effort taken to generate with as much realism as possible that I'm curious about what is selected for the cutoff in cases like this where the model has to radically depart from astronomy.)
Large planets have a lot of moons. Eg Saturn and Jupiter both have over 60 moons each, and our solar system has over 1600 "minor planets" (TNO's like Pluto and Eris) whereas in Elite's star systems, large planets never have more than about a dozen moons, and planet numbers are limited to a more Galilean scope.
I'm guessing the criteria (for moons at least) is size - Elite's procedural algorithms presumably only bother with moons above a certain size, which greatly cuts down the number of objects in the system (streamlining both gameplay and CPU), and also ensures that all objects in supercruise are spherical, which presumably simplifies things too.
Does anyone happen to know what and where the cutoff criteria is? If it's simple size or mass, is there a diameter or mass? Or is it something more complex (like size/mass/composition calculation that checks it's big enough to be a sphere?)
No real reason for my question, just curious. (There's so much effort taken to generate with as much realism as possible that I'm curious about what is selected for the cutoff in cases like this where the model has to radically depart from astronomy.)
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