Oolite Bulletins

Leesti, it appears, presents a good example of a noticeable effect. If 22° in a week then that's just over 3° a day, so on a milk run, 'yo-yo' jumping between two systems, it would still be so gradual that it could easily go unnoticed. If moving on account of markets as you suggest then there would certainly be more movement but also less clear memory I think.

Inner planets (ie. between main planet and star) would likely be more noticeable in their movements but the closer they are to the sun the more scale looks wrong.

Here's another compromise that involves dynamic planets and moons but not true orbits:
How about retrograde or pendulous 'orbits'?
What I mean by this is planets orbit as normal but once they begin to head to far side of sun, their orbit simply reverses back from where they came, like a pendulum.

Odd, but less jarring than true orbits without rescaling the star. From my work on the rescaling experiment I know that the star distance and size is typically proportional to the main planet size. It is very easy to increase the distance but putting planetary bodies 'behind' it remains a problem.

The glare effect helps (as I first discovered from rescaling, prior to it being in the main game) but is largely spoiled with planets behind).

I remain open to being persuaded otherwise but I think that oolite as it is, even in my rescaled version, does not currently suit true orbits.

Three obvious problems:

• Star is too small relative to planets (orbits make this worse)
• Planets are too small relative to player (requires 'cramped' systems for visible effect)
• Moons also tend to be very large in order to not just look like big asteroids (potentially obscuring planet)

My rescaling work addressed the second two in a way I was very pleased with but did little to address the first. Norby has some experience with Far Planets but I think realistic distances make orbits largely go unnoticed.

Please, keep thinking, I expect there is a way to make this work

EDIT:

I've just read your Sun Gear post.
Am I understanding correctly?
Have you resized suns relative to planets e.g. suns/stars 5 times larger and planets unchanged?
And via OXP rather than source code changes?
If so then I can see why you might think orbits less problematic.

Yes, suns in Sun Gear are 5 times larger and 25...35 times more distant than default suns. Not real proportion yet, but planets behind sun looks more realistic. Yes, planet sizes remains mostly unchanged (some planet radii are rebalanced in Habitable Main Planets OXP). And yes, sun sizes are redefined in planetinfo.plist.
Unfortunately it is hard to attain seamless integration of ship, planet and sun scales. This is not issue if you have only one planet and one main station in system - 1 km Coriolis looks small comparing with 50 km planet. But the same Coriolis as moon orbiter will be too oversized comparing with 10 km moon
There is another issue with simulation of really large planets: if you want to use PlanetFall or so, increasing planet size will lead to too wide zone of mass-locking. Using planet with 6400 km radius as Earth twin realistic Uranus will be almost 4 times larger - so taking 24000 km radius for simplicity it will be 240,000 m wide zone of mass-locking from surface to free space. This is 11m25s flight for Cobra Mk III on full throttle.

Unfortunately it is hard to attain seamless integration of ship, planet and sun scales.

Tell me about it

Well I don't know if you've tried the rescaling experiment but at the very least it addresses these problems.

In the current incarnation, relative to the Cobra Mk III:

• stars, planets and moons 6.6 times bigger
• stations and freighters 2 times bigger
• fighters are at 2/3 original size
• space lane is relatively twice as long (making it 13.2 times longer)
• torus drive has been boosted consiferably.
• laser ranges have been reduced to make fighters no less visible

Making things bigger relative to the player gives more options.
For example, I could halve the size of the moons (6.6 ÷ 2 = 3.3) and they'd still look bigger next to the station (3.3 ÷ 2 = 1.66). If you want to put a station round a 'regular' moon then it would appear (6.6 ÷ 2) 3.3 times smaller than in the standard game.

With regards to sunskimming there are some source code alterations that can be done. Additionally, my recent oxp Masslock Compensator already makes the star aegis a special exception and speed in yellow alert can easily be adjusted to suit greater distance (and I now know how to do the same for planets).

I will try out Sun Gear when I have some time.

Your rescaling experiment is interesting, Redspear. With some new issues, of course. But any new idea will produce new issues being realized. Think I need some reading to avoid too stupid questions before continue discussion. Maybe you already have answers for most evident questions.