Orbit

[Jack]

Can you actualli orbit planet? Or when you arrive on one you just watch forever that "face" of the planet?

[DanGovier]

Originally posted by Jack:

Can you actualli orbit planet? Or when you arrive on one you just watch forever that "face" of the planet?

Right now the planet and the ship are static when you are not at FTL, but once we implement sublight engines properly we'll also add orbiting.

We're not going to go full-kerbal because that's beyond the scope of the game, so instead the orbiting of planets will managed automatically based on altitude.

What that means in real terms, is the ship and any stations etc will have their physics states moved sideways at a rate equal to whatever speed is required for a stable circular orbit at the current altitude.

By extension, that also means each planet will have an exact altitude where geo-stationary orbits are possible. For Earth that's 35,786km, for example.

Your orbit will get slower and slower the further you are from the planet, until it becomes zero at the edge of the planet's hill sphere.

The Helm station will eventually show all of that information, along with some controls to maintain alignment such as "prograde" and "standard orbit".

[Nemesis00]

On the Orbit subject (sort of): Will ringed planets have asteroid rings ?
Places where you can mine, hide and fight.
I've looked and searched to no avail but maybe I had the wrong terms.

[DanGovier]

Originally posted by Nemesis00:

On the Orbit subject (sort of): Will ringed planets have asteroid rings ?
Places where you can mine, hide and fight.
I've looked and searched to no avail but maybe I had the wrong terms.

Planetary rings will eventually be volumetric and contain rocks/ice, but we're doing it realistically so it won't be like flying through large boulders. Any large objects will have cleared a path in the ring, but then yes those will be mineable.

[Nemesis00]

Thanks for the reply. That sounds great. I play Spacebourne2 that's in EA. The rings in SB2 are light planes (for lack of a better explanation), its like a light curtain. I'm glad to know rings will be a place to visit and explore. Hopefully they'll be dangerous places too.