Actual version: 0.1.0
Uploaded 04 November 2020
This is brief description, inherited from classic Elite.Lave is most famous for its vast rain forests and the Laveian tree grub.
It was nice to imagine these rain forests having only wireframe graphics with white circle of planet, filled with black.
Now we have Oolite with improved graphics. And we have some cool guides created by funs.
Shameless vast citation from Selezen’s Elite Extended Universe - https://daftworks.co.uk/elite/index.php/Lave
We have also excellent Rough Guide to Ooniverse (author Blaze O’Glory aka Disembodied). A bit different, but very colorful tropical word.The planet Lave is the only world in the system, in a solitary orbit around its orange dwarf star.
Lave has many features in common with old Earth, including a nitrogen rich atmosphere and the length of a Lavian year being 365 Terran days long. The Lavian day, however, is 20 hours long as opposed to 24, giving more days in the local year.
Lave is a verdant, fertile world with breathtaking scenery and vast forests.
Geology
Lave has four main continents. Firstfall, the easternmost section of the above map, is the most densely populated, and was the first landmass to be colonised. The original colony ships landed on the west coast of the eastermost arm of the continent, on the banks of what is now called the Paluberion Sea. From there many villages and homesteads were set up, eventually becoming the cities we know today, including Ashoria, the planetary capital.
Solata, the smallest of the continents, is home to a sizeable colony of felinoids from many worlds who have decided to make Lave thier home.
The landmasses on Lave are comparatively stable. Geological surveys have detected little seismic activity, and there are no active volcanoes on the planet, although evidence exists that Lave was once highly volcanic.
From a surface point of view, the waterways of Lave are relatively few, with only four rivers to speak of. Much of the irrigation of the planet is due to the high subterranean water levels. The planets crust is thick but is not dense, and this has allowed waterways to be carved into the very rock and soil of the land masses.
Climate
Seasons on the world are not notably different, due to the fact that Lave's rotation is less than a degree from the true vertical in relation to the solar body. This has the effect of ensuring that Lave's climate is reasonably stable, with a mean variation of only 5 degrees celcius throughout the year. Like all worlds, though, Lave's climate becomes increasingly cold towards the poles.
Rain is a common thing on Lave, but if the clouds are absent then the days are usually quite warm and pleasant. Humidity can be high in the southern hemisphere, but is normally moderate.
Population
Lave is home to two racial groups: humans and felinoids. The humans, being humans, are all indigenous to Earth originally. The felinoids, however, come from a variety of genotypes and phenotypes and have successfully crossbred, creating a unique and successful society of thier own.
The felinoid race primarily inhabit the smallest of the continents, Solata, although some have wandered out across the planet and live peacefully with their fellow human inhabitants.
Every continent has been colonised, but by far the most concentrated population is on the FirstFall continent. Meridian is the next most densely populated area. The populace live mostly in cities but there are a few wandering societies, mostly based on the larger landmass of Meridian. The coastal areas of the planet are the most densely populated, since the interior landscape is heavily forested. As the population expands, however, the forests are bing cut back to create new townships.
Lave is not just one of 2048 generic planets. From this world you’ll start your journey. So Lave will give newbie pilot first visual impression. Has Lave adequate visual appearance as your first memorable planet? Default Lave – definitely no. There are polished ships and station... and weird generic planet with pink seas.Close your eyes and you’ll see them still: the arc of Crater Bay; the juts and jags of the Fenric coast; the curling comma Suther makes, creeping over the horizon into the short Laveian night.
Well, now we have LaveIsEarth (author another_commander). Nice looking demo, turning Lave into Earth twin. But evidently Lave is NOT Earth twin. It is another world – with different oceans and continents and with tropical climate without polar caps.
We have also procedure generated Lave in my Habitable Main Planets, with more realistic colors of oceans and continents. Not so bad Lave, but this is generic tropical world. You’ll see dozens of similar tropical worlds with blue oceans and green landmasses during your journey.
This is my attempt to create unique Lave.
I have no plans to match exactly Selezen’s excellent description of Lave geography and climate. It is easy to find multiple discrepancies. Just take it as another Lave. Hope you’ll enjoy it.
This OXP changes visual appearance of Lave using custom 4096 x 2048 textures for diffuse and specular maps.
Lave is almost flat tropical world, so don't expect dynamic shadows from prominent terrain details (only some hints will be noticeable near terminator).
Conflicts and dependencies
Any packages using script to redefine Lave texture, such as Povray Planets, will overwrite FPO Lave texture.
In case of custom Lave textures redefined in planetinfo.plist result will be dependent from loading order. The latest planetinfo.plist in loading order has highest priority. For example, another_commander's Lave is Earth will load before FPO Lave and FPO Lave will have priority. But if you have some old OXP with custom Lave texture in AddOn folder, it will load after FPO Lave and overwrite it.
In any case having one custom texture for one planet, not several, is right.
Credits
Mask for continents was created using upscaled texture home_planet19.png from System Demux 2 (author DrBeeb). Original texture has 2048 x 1024 resolution.
Textures for diffuse map from NASA Blue Marble open project.
Normal map was created using Earth normal mosaic map (author jestr from Celestia community)
Changes made to original normal map include the addition of an alpha channel, a swap of red and green channels and inversion of original green channel.
Lave description is based on Famous Planets v 2.5 manual (author Pagroove) and Rough Guide to Ooniverse (author Blaze O’Glory aka Disembodied).
Thanks to another_commander for inspiration and commander vasig from Roolite community for initial testing.
Can't wait to try it!