Oolite Bulletins

aegidian wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:26 am

Code: Select all

addShipsWithinRadius: <role> <number> <coordinate-system> <x> <y> <z> <radius in metres>

eg.

Code: Select all

"addShipsWithinRadius: asteroid 48 wpm 0 0 15000 5000"

would add a 5km-wide asteroid field with 48 asteroids at a position roughly 15000m towards the planet from the witchpoint.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 3:48 pm

I presume that the clumps of asteroids which we currently see in the vanilla game bear no resemblance to what actually exists - or am I wrong?

Contrary to popular imagery, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large volume that reaching an asteroid without aiming carefully would be improbable. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of asteroids are currently known, and the total number ranges in the millions or more, depending on the lower size cutoff. Over 200 asteroids are known to be larger than 100 km, and a survey in the infrared wavelengths has shown that the asteroid belt has between 700,000 and 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more. The absolute magnitudes of most of the known asteroids are between 11 and 19, with the median at about 16.

The total mass of the asteroid belt is estimated to be 2.39×1021 kg, which is just 3% of the mass of the Moon. The four largest objects, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea, account for maybe 62% of the belt's total mass, with 39% accounted for by Ceres alone.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 11:55 am

Cim has asteroids at the Lagrange Points...