Orbiter Forum Planetary System

[astrosammy]

That thing in Sochi would be a nice thing to test weapons in Lock On :lol:.

I think I'll do an inhabitable planet, something like Mars.

 

[River Crab]

Really, we need exobiologists/exogeologists who can create realistic atmospheres for our less hospitable planets. We need to have the same kind of diversity as Sol, and then some. Habitable alone is not interesting; diversity is what makes planets interesting.

I think we would want a gas giant that is a viable fuel source, and a few captured asteroids to mine. We would also want a good planet to terraform. Basically, all (or most of) the planets should have a different reason to go there.

Also a way to get there. Optimally the planets would be mostly coplanar, and windows should not be hard to find. Orbital periods need to be timed well. We don't want something like Mars, which is only accessible from Earth every 26 months because of its funky orbit.
Or maybe we want a challenge? In that case, go to an asteroid, I guess.

Realistically we would have a maximum of two Earth-like habitable planets, with life on one spawned from Exogenesis, seeded by the other. This could make for an interesting contact story if one is more advanced. Maybe one more planet to be terraformed, but that's it for cramming stuff into the Habitable zone.

Also, we want to be able to use our existing spacecraft. Our Earth-like planets should be equally or less massive than Earth, the atmosphere should be as thin or slightly thinner. We don't want a heatshield-shredding atmosphere or huge gravity well.

That's a lot of stuff to consider...good thing we can work it out in this thread! :thumbup:

 

[T.Neo]

Reading up on [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetology"]planetary science[/ame] is a must IMO. Good speculative resources include Extrasolar Visions, based around speculations of known extrasolar planets and Chris Wayan's Planetocopia, which includes both entirely speculative planets, terraformed versions of Venus and Mars, and alternate Earths.

Other than that it helps to research the properties of both planets in our own solar system and what little is known about extrasolar planets as well.

Perhaps some of the smaller bodies can be made habitable via the "worldhouse" technique- placing a pressurised roof over an entire planet? I don't know how such a concept could be simulated in Orbiter...

 

[SiberianTiger]

Did the immortal cats, by any chance, look like this?

Yes, a bit like that. But, since they were also flying, they had very long tails to be used as propellers... :lol:

Kind of like the new Federation-shaped island they planned to make for Sochi Olympics, on a planet (not sure if they're still doing this):

:gulp: :blink: Was it really such a plan? Just think of it: there would not be a good use for an artificial island off the shore of a winter Black Sea! It looks like someone was just taking a chance to build a nice mansion (and probably, business estate) for himself!

Okay, speaking about what patterns you could use, there are possible choices: the Kremlin tower names; the big battles of the Great Patriotic War ("the Ten Stalin's strikes"); names of the 1st Cosmonaut draft members; names of Soviet awards; names of Soviet soccer teams; names of Soviet cars; names of sorts of vodka... Let me think more... :hmm:

 

[Izack]

Oh, what a topic!

All listen to me, I'm going to win a wacko prize here now! :lol: When I was a teen, I devised a whole galaxy populated by immortal and unkillable flying cat-people who had tens habitable worlds (and I drew maps for all of them) - you see why they needed to expand to space, don't you? There was a homeworld, few capital worlds, many very special worlds, and one sacred world, which actually was a habitable oasis located in an outer layer of sun-sized stable space-time anomaly which was constructed of interfering gravity and anti-gravity fields in spherical arrangement, and generally looked from outside like and enormous hazy desert which had golden (really golden!) sands and horrendous creatures inhabitating wilderness. The entire thing was located in the center of our Galaxy, moving at random paths around the central body, which was a "White" hole, constantly erupting huge amounts of simple matter (which dimmed the light source right to the bearable illumination level). And they had a many miles tall central temple in that place.

And I thought I was crazy.


Anyway, captured asteroids should be the easiest part, if we just use the models for Phobos and Deimos. :thumbup:

I'm no artist, so you'll probably get no maps from me. I am, however, a good writer (IMO) and can pull off a good history and description.

 

[astrosammy]

Oh damn, I have a huge problem with texture creation. The map needs to be stretched to get to a correct [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection"]Equirectangular projection[/ame], but I didn't find any way to do this. Without it looks very strange.

 

[River Crab]

:gulp: :blink: Was it really such a plan? Just think of it: there would not be a good use for an artificial island off the shore of a winter Black Sea! It looks like someone was just taking a chance to build a nice mansion (and probably, business estate) for himself!

Okay, speaking about what patterns you could use, there are possible choices: the Kremlin tower names; the big battles of the Great Patriotic War ("the Ten Stalin's strikes"); names of the 1st Cosmonaut draft members; names of Soviet awards; names of Soviet soccer teams; names of Soviet cars; names of sorts of vodka... Let me think more... :hmm:

OK, I'm having a moment here. What do you mean by patterns? Names of planets/moons?
I was going to name them the same as the countries they are based on, but I guess if we're actually making this for OFPS, it might be more of an allegory than a satire...
On second thought, a planetary allegory of the Soviet Union sounds interesting, and we won't have to be as accurate.

Off topic:
I heard that the plans for the island were scrapped, but I'm not sure. Apparently it was going to be a joint project with Japan, so it might have just been a foreign relations device. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because it sounds interesting.

 

[donatelo200]

What about mathematically defined planets?

B0x0-2:
0.59g of gravity, 188 degrees in 4 atmospheres of carbon dioxide, spinning around itself in 30 hours. Long time ago there was life and intelligence there, the latter got plagued by stupidity, and the first was quickly gone after that.

I use spaceway and win star gen to help me cauculate diamiter dencity and atmosphere alot. It makes the world go round.

 

[fireballs619]

I suppose since all of our planets can't be cozy and full of life, we have to decide whose are. Of course I'd want mine to be, but if it doesn't work out, mine can be a dieing planet, similiar to Mars in 'The Martian Chronicles', if any have read that. Currently, my planet is a water world, and somewhat small. Because of the gravity of the moon, the tides are very fierce and strong, eroding away all but the strongest rocks, such as granite. This means there is not much land. Later on in its life, it somehow loses its atmosphere (I Haven't decided how) and the water dries up, rendering it inhospitable.

 

[River Crab]

Oh damn, I have a huge problem with texture creation. The map needs to be stretched to get to a correct Equirectangular projection, but I didn't find any way to do this. Without it looks very strange.

Maybe try Flexify 2, in my link above? From the looks of it, it can input any kind of projection and output any other kind of projection. Either way it sounds useful; just look at what they did to their little local map.

 

[donatelo200]

My planet (even though it has life) is far from cozy. 1,430F summers and -170F winters. Not a place for humans. In spring in fall though it's at Earths temp.

 

[Kaito]

WOW, a lot of responses!
As far as life goes, I think the "habitable zone" stuff is garbage. The habitable zone is for life as we know it. I personally think that every planet we create could have the potential for life. As long as the life giving substance is water across the board, we should be good. Let people's imagination run free.

Or people can create a history where there planet /did/ have life, but it died out a while ago.

 

[donatelo200]

Yes life as we know it is not the only life. In my Ups And system (not finished) Planet e (fictional) it orbits 11 Au and it has life. The life uses liquid methan if anyone was going to ask.

 

[River Crab]

Don't forget the possibility to give life! Exogenesis is OK for one planet. I'm just eager to do some terraforming. Or maybe monolith-creating.

---------- Post added at 12:54 ---------- Previous post was at 12:47 ----------

One more thing, they can't all be rocky planets either. I really can't think of what would make gas giants significantly different...perhaps the gravity is good for slings? Or the atmosphere is good for aerobraking? We could also do the "forest moon of Endor" thing, or the "moon of a moon" thing.
I definitely want to be able to use one for easy fuel. That would make space travel so much easier for the spacefaring intelligent life.

 

[donatelo200]

What about building a planet? Like the city planet from Star Wars. My idea is a moon with a high eccentric jovian. (already have tex for them)

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I've finished up the Jack McDevitt novels (the Acadmey series), and got to thinking along the same lines... When a survey ship arrives "in system" they begin to survey the planets in the bio-zone, capable of supporting human life.

In so doing, they overlook instances where things might be found outside that zone...
I'm sure microorganisms can survive in many hostile (to human) environments, plus after seeing some of the odd creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean, I'm interested in what might be under Europa's icy shell.

 

[River Crab]

What about building a planet? Like the city planet from Star Wars. My idea is a moon with a high eccentric jovian.

By building a planet, do you mean "that's no moon"? Or like the Magratheans?
Coruscant wasn't a constructed planet, it was just completely covered in city. There are mentions of ground in some Star Wars media.

And do you mean "Jovian moon with high eccentricity?" There are different kinds of Jovian moons, so be more specific.

Anyway, it sounds like a challenging place to get to; maybe it's a resource-rich Avalon planet? Like Europa? Maybe it's a coveted living space? :hmm:

 

[fireballs619]

By building a planet, do you mean "that's no moon"? Or like the Magratheans?

:rofl:

Anyway, how many planets are we going to have. It obviously depends on how many people want to do this, but if there get to a lot of people, one jovian type system could count for a lot. Plus, multiple worlds orbiting one planet would lead to some interesting histories, methinks.

 

[donatelo200]

And do you mean "Jovian moon with high eccentricity?" There are different kinds of Jovian moons, so be more specific.

The jovian planet is eccentric. The moon is inhabbited. Average distance from star is in the habitale zone. Harsh seasons. Summer temp is 1,430F and winter temp is -170F. Look on the first page in this thread for the tex.

 

[River Crab]

The jovian planet is eccentric. The moon is inhabbited. Average distance from star is in the habitale zone. Harsh seasons. Summer temp is 1,430F and winter temp is -170F. Look on the first page in this thread for the tex.

OH, that one. Looking back, though, a gas giant 3x as massive as Jupiter on an eccentric orbit in the habitable zone sounds like it could really complicate things (as you said).

IMHO, we absolutely need a closely Earth-like planet somewhere in the system, because otherwise our existing atmospheric vessels wouldn't function. No XR2 = BAD.

If it is far enough away to allow a stable orbit for an Earthlike, the contrast between could make for an interesting duality.

But also, about "habitable zone": what kind of star is our star? if we tweak things, we could make the habitable zone larger or smaller, and keep the orbits in tune. But I still say class F or G if as needed for an Earthlike, unless we can get it to work in another configuration.