Oolite Bulletins

When a star goes nova, the planet disappears and the star appears in a new position (as seen when emerging from witchspace upon one's return).

That new position of the star is almost, but not quite, where the planet used to be. It is a little farther along the line between laser sights of the HUD (if you come to a dead stop once emerged from witchspace) and where the planet used to be, in two cases that I have saved.

Does anyone know whether all stars subject to nova events exhibit the same behaviour?

And in any galaxy where novæ might occur, are all 256 stars equally at risk?

(This is posted under expansion packs because I am placing objects in the vicinity of novæ and wish to position them accurately)

All comments appreciated ..cheers

All stars are equally at risk: well, all stars you visit are equally at risk. We wouldn't want the player to miss out on the action!

That's with vanilla Oolite, though. There could be some oxps I'm not aware of (many of them) that make a specific system or two go nova.

I haven't given much thought to the nova's position within the system, though. I suppose if there's no planet to look at, it kind of makes sense to at least show the sun when emerging from witchspace...

Btw, if you've got the debug oxp (& the javascript console if using windows/linux) you can make any sun in any galaxy go nova immediately, like this:

I had no idea stars could even go nova, I have never seen it. So a system could just go away at a given point. What if you are headed there with a passenger ? What happens if you are there? It's the biggest Q-bomb of them all!
I see an OXP of 'recover the tech item before the system blows'
of something like that.

Chrisfs wrote:

I had no idea stars could even go nova, I have never seen it. So a system could just go away at a given point. What if you are headed there with a passenger ? What happens if you are there? It's the biggest Q-bomb of them all!
I see an OXP of 'recover the tech item before the system blows'
of something like that.

Isn't it great when there is always something new to discover in Oolite?
Just go to galaxy 4 and all your questions will be answered within a few jumps.

Zbond-Zbond wrote:

That new position of the star is almost, but not quite, where the planet used to be. It is a little farther along the line between laser sights of the HUD...
Does anyone know whether all stars subject to nova events exhibit the same behaviour?

They all do. There is a special check to place suns at the planet position in novæ systems, but further away to not burn the station itself.

Don't ask me why, it seems wrong to now have the station near the sun. Its probably for game reasons to have the player to look at something on entering, as Kask suggested.

i didn't know this either. there's a mission where a sun goes nova, but i didn't know any one of them int he game could :-/

Eric Walch wrote:

There is a special check to place suns at the planet position in novæ systems, but further away to not burn the station itself.

Moving a star (otherwise re-located to the former planet's position) explains everything. Given the nature of the native mission.

I'd never realised it was possible to return to the station LATER, until recently - although departing again is a bit tricky!

So now I just gotta adjust a few things and that's about it.

Chrisfs wrote:

So a system could just go away at a given point

..and depending on which system it is, the result can become (mildly) annoying!

Thanks for all the comments/suggestions