Oolite Bulletins

From the Griff's normalmapped ship remakes thread:

The Black Albatross wrote:

I just came across the new Coriolis in my game. I love the new sense of scale that it has; finally the Coriolis looks and feels as huge as it should. I think my docking computer's gonna be gathering dust for the next few jumps, because whenever I see this station I can't help but dock manually to check it out.

I think this is an interesting reaction ... I feel the same way myself. Personally, I think the slower rotation and the larger docking bay are excellent innovations. The sense of scale is a great advantage. The only downside is that, from a purist Elite point of view, it makes docking easier. However, I think that docking is too hard anyway for a lot of beginners, and can be very offputting: there can be few things more annoying than finally making it through your first cargo trip only to die trying to park. Plus it could help prevent a lot of NPC crashes, too.

I think there are strong grounds for making this dock size and rotation speed the default. What do other people think?

I've been researching the correct rotational speeds for space stations to generate 1G gravity.

Given a radius of approx 500m (since a Coriolis is about 1km in diameter) the rotational speed would be 1.33 rpm. Not as fast as I wopuld have thought, oddly...

Figures obtained from here:
http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/Sp ... inCalc.htm

Selezen wrote:

I've been researching the correct rotational speeds for space stations to generate 1G gravity.

Given a radius of approx 500m (since a Coriolis is about 1km in diameter) the rotational speed would be 1.33 rpm. Not as fast as I wopuld have thought, oddly...

I assume that would be 1G at the outer hull, becoming less in the interior levels until we finally reach the Zero-G-cricket ground in the very centre.

So perhaps the rotation speed would be a little faster, maintaining 1G in some intermediate level, less than that on the inside, and more than that towards the hull.

For instance, the same calculator says that for 1.5 rpm you get 1.25G at 500 meters (which seems just bearable), but only 0.62G halfway down to the centre at 250 meters. In this case you would have 1G at 397 meters.

One possibility, though it might be needlessly complicating the matter, would be to have stations size and rotation rates vary. Maybe base it on something like the gross productivity of the planet/system. Planets that are major producers would have bigger (perhaps newer) stations. That way some could have nice massive stations to dock at while others would be little "hole in the wall" stations that aren't as easy to dock at manually.

I personally agree on liking the new Coriolis. Not because it's easier to dock at, but because the massive look and feel are just excellent. But it could stand to reason that smaller markets might not get them. GalCop logically would put in big stations where there's enough market commerce to make them profitable.

Ganelon wrote:

One possibility, though it might be needlessly complicating the matter, would be to have stations size and rotation rates vary.

Ooh, nice idea! The rotation rate could vary according to the radius of the planet ... big planet = higher local gravity, so the station might spin faster to simulate local conditions on the premium-rate upper levels. It is an unnecessary complication, but I like it anyway!

In general, though, I'm in favour of making docking easier, and making the stations seem grander: making the docking bay bigger helps a lot with this, as does making the rotation more ponderous. 1.5 rpm would be a good maximum, I think ... does anyone know what the rate is at the moment?

Disembodied wrote:

as does making the rotation more ponderous. 1.5 rpm would be a good maximum, I think ... does anyone know what the rate is at the moment?

That's one of the reasons why I like the Torus station... a slow, stately rotation... as well as the fact that it has a large no-jump zone.

Might I suggest, if possible that is, different default rotation speeds for different stations. Safe worlds (where the beginner would start out anyway) have huge stations with large docking bays and slow rotation speeds. Unsafe worlds with less trade have smaller stations, smaller docking bays and a faster rotation speed (Where the player would travel only after equipping his ship and having built up at least some experience). The Coriolis would be somewhere in the middle here, while the dodo would need to be scaled up and so on. This, at least, makes sense to me.

Gimi wrote:

Might I suggest, if possible that is, different default rotation speeds for different stations. Safe worlds (where the beginner would start out anyway) have huge stations with large docking bays and slow rotation speeds. Unsafe worlds with less trade have smaller stations, smaller docking bays and a faster rotation speed (Where the player would travel only after equipping his ship and having built up at least some experience). The Coriolis would be somewhere in the middle here, while the dodo would need to be scaled up and so on. This, at least, makes sense to me.

It's an interesting idea and I like it!

Caveat with the fact that I wonder if station manufacturers would go to the trouble of making different versions of their stations...