What makes a giant a giant versus a dwarf?

disorganise

disorganise
Within two jumps, I find a Red Giant;
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And the ubiquitous Red Dwarf;
JRmKxt4.png


Giant is 0.2695 solar masses and 0.4754 solar radius, 2327K
Dwarf is 0.3477 solar masses and 0.5531 solar radius, 3069K

I don't get it. How can a giant be smaller, less massive and cooler than the corresponding dwarf?
 

Major Klutz

Major Klutz
It's a good question.
I visited a super-giant last week that the game doesn't even list as a giant. It's description is just an ordinary B type.
Titans of Preae Chruia, 432 Solar radii

Notice the distance to the star in these screenshots.
https://i.imgur.com/2SS0XQG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0LBvTLC.jpg

Compared to this system which is listed as an Orange Giant and I assume must be ProgGen due to it's location.
Lonely Candle , only 36 Solar radii

Betelgeuse is properly shows as a SuperGiant but it's a hand placed system.
Hades Edge is (I assume) proc gen and shows as a plain S type even though it's > 172 Solar radii
 
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malenfant

M
disorganise said:
Giant is 0.2695 solar masses and 0.4754 solar radius, 2327K
Dwarf is 0.3477 solar masses and 0.5531 solar radius, 3069K

I don't get it. How can a giant be smaller, less massive and cooler than the corresponding dwarf?
Click to expand...

Because it's bugged. Stellar Forge screwed up, the "giant" should be a red dwarf too.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
I think the thing that's "bugged" is the giant star's size. From my admittedly limited observations of them, the Goldilocks zone on these "baby giants" is way out where it "ought to be" for a giant star, not up in the regular-red-dwarf Goldilocks area.

Could it be simply that the system map isn't reporting the size right? How large are these stars when you fly around them?
 

disorganise

disorganise
Sapyx said:
I think the thing that's "bugged" is the giant star's size. From my admittedly limited observations of them, the Goldilocks zone on these "baby giants" is way out where it "ought to be" for a giant star, not up in the regular-red-dwarf Goldilocks area.

Could it be simply that the system map isn't reporting the size right? How large are these stars when you fly around them?
Click to expand...

interesting thought. I'm fairly sure I arrived around 8ls away which I thought was fairly normal, but I just checked the dwarf I just arrived at...2ls (radius 0.46 so a bit smaller)
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
I think it comes down to the way that the Forge assigns luminosity classes. My memory is a little hazy but there seem to be different "bins" available for different stars, and the classes given don't necessarily make sense. I'll dig up my old stuff on this when I'm home, somewhere I have a big (empirical) list of what luminosities get what class for a given temperature of star.
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
Agreed that it's probably just bugged... but the only case I can think of that might make sense is a star that's in its death throws. For instance, a G-class star expands into an M-class giant near the end of its life, and then sheds its outer layers before contracting down into a white dwarf. During that shedding and contracting phase, I'm not sure where you'd classify it. It's over 10 billion years old, so the age is appropriate.
 
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