Other spacial phenomenae...

[drew]

I'd like the ability to add other astronomical stuff to Elite.

Right now the Tianve Pulsar (which is in actual fact a small fast spinning moon with a wacky texture) is the only one I know of.

It would be great to create interplanetary nebulaes, dust rings, nova halos or other wierd stuff like that.

I could see something like addPlanet being modified to allow control of the size of the atmosphere. If you could have a tiny planet with a huge atmosphere you could create a neutron star with a huge distended atmosphere or similar.

Any thoughts on adding these sorts of capabilities?

Cheers,

drew.

[another_commander]

I don't think anyone will have problems with nebulae in the future:
http://oolite.org/images/gallery/full-of-stars.jpg

The rest don't sound like bad ideas either. But I guess it will be a while before we see them in.

[Frame]

I'd like the ability to add other astronomical stuff to Elite.

Right now the Tianve Pulsar (which is in actual fact a small fast spinning moon with a wacky texture) is the only one I know of.

It would be great to create interplanetary nebulaes, dust rings, nova halos or other wierd stuff like that.

I could see something like addPlanet being modified to allow control of the size of the atmosphere. If you could have a tiny planet with a huge atmosphere you could create a neutron star with a huge distended atmosphere or similar.

Any thoughts on adding these sorts of capabilities?

Cheers,

drew.

If ever Ahruman gets shaders to work on planets.. which is not a priority for the next MNSR, i imagine we can do tons of cool stuff, if anything I/We can see in render monkey is possible in Oolite...

i´m not at all sure on what is possible or not with shaders in Oolite yet...

It is possible to create two planets at the same spot... if we can animate/manipulate one of them we could in theory make rays extend from the inner planet without breaking the appearence of the outer planet that is covering the inner planet...

Shaders have the ability to manipulate the vertexes of the object/ship/planet it is bound too... however right now only ships/stations can have shaders...

Making large objects that resemebles planets will generate collision problems... and the altitude indicator will not work for these, not to mention performance issues..

Shaders offcourse carry their own set of compatibility issues... also i like your athmosphere effect.. i would however like it to be modified to...

A new object called a nebula... that you can actually fly into, wherein you can have planets and a sun if need be... Visibility should be the same as when you enter an athmosphere...

The shape and size of the nebula could be a sphere.. but also certain different nebula shapes, while i presume a sphere is most performance freindly in terms of calculating where it ends and starts...

Syntax like planet but AddNebula instead of AddPlanet...

There is more things you could do with this, for example you could option the nebula to cancel out shields on player ships... like in star trek II, the Wrath of Kahn..

Or to boost his shields, for NPCs to double its Energy reserve... and so on, there is almost no end to the possibilities...

I just fear, that none of the developers have any time todo this... :-/

Edit: a script could even make lightning strikes inside a nebula, by adding a lightning, then removing it again, at next timer kick in

Actually this is allready possible.., you could vector it around any NPC or Player ship..., throw a shader on, so that it always lit up... add a proximity sensor in its AI to hurt the player or NPC if we set its target to be any ship it seeks... Visually however it is going to be a little odd... since we cant make it streak towards its target... unless we can do something fancy with shaders.. which again brings back the compatibility issue...

[Commander McLane]

A new object called a nebula... that you can actually fly into, wherein you can have planets and a sun if need be... Visibility should be the same as when you enter an athmosphere...

Perhaps that could be a starting point: sort of an atmosphere, but without a planet. Question: What would it look like from the distance? Would you even see it at all? Or would you suddenly end up being trapped in that kind of thing, without prior notice?