copper silo
How is gravity simulated? Do the planets and stars act like gravity wells with orbits that we can park in?
And on ships, is there an in-universe explanation for how artificial gravity works? IMO it’d be cool to have a realistic zero-g environment, at least for parts of the ship without artificial gravity.
Would love to see something like the Hermes from The Martian.
prime plover
Artificial gravity as a physical piece of tech that needs resources, maintenance, and repairs or we all float sounds fun.
lucid dome
In the current design, there are field coils for artificial gravity system contained within the structural framework cavity all around the belly of the ship and the system is energized from the fusion reactor.
Artificial gravity is variable as distance from the field coils increases so G Deck has the most gravity, and A Deck has the least.
Gravity is also generated as a sphere so we will be able to walk across the bottom of the hull upside down while experiencing gravity.
support craft like shuttles would also be affected if they flew under the ship.
The system will also be used to help counteract inertial effects while under sublight propulsion.
copper silo
How are orbits modeled then?
lucid dome
Planets, stars, blackholes, etc will have gravity wells, and the FTL system will be sensitive to them, so the speed you can travel at superluminally will change based on the mass of the stellar objects around you.
Orbital mechanics will be simplified and be spline based. Dan recently posted that the ship will be free to fly where ever at sublight speeds up to a limit altitude around planets and such, at which point a shuttle would be needed to go further towards the surface.
A circular spline will be drawn around the planet that intersects with the ship. He said at the equator it would be horizontal and at the poles it would have a 90 degree inclination.
The physics state of the ship will be moved along the spline at a speed calculated to be what the ship would require to maintain that orbital altitude.
The result is that the ship will always be in a circular orbit, but you can change orbital altitude freely and the speed of the orbit will change accordingly.
Shuttles will still have to play with orbital position and altitude in order to align with and intercept the ship for docking.
The higher your orbital altitude the slower the speed you will be traveling, so you may have to sit at a higher altitude to wait for the ship to catch up to you, or lower to catch up to it. We will also have to align our inclinations if we are not on the same orbital trajectory.
We will also have controls for prograde, retrograde, etc.
but the ship will always automatically circularize it's orbit.
So we won't have to worry about periapsis and apogee.
stellar bodies will use similar splines for their orbits.
median yew
I gather the game features are limited by what can be done in Unreal Engine in reasonable time, and so is realistic gravity. #1223334670213840967 message
I really read between the lines when people start explaining the FTL drive. If a person falls off the edge of the ship as if it were a cliff edge, that's just plain Unreal Engine.
lucid dome
In this case I believe it more to be a design decision. on how the artificial gravity works. Right now what you said is true, but that is because of the current state of the alpha. When done gravity and the lack there of will be modelled. Turn off the artificial gravity and free float away.
median yew
In this case I believe it more to be a design decision. on how the artificial gr...
I believe so
lucid dome
Dan will also be using the artificial gravity system to subdue inertial forces on the ship to an extent. He has described it as "tilting" the field generated by the coils. But it will be limited in how much it is able to correct for. I would not recommend disabling the artificial gravity and then doing a full burn of the sublight propulsion.
median yew
That would be fun to simulate 😄