I suppose I should clarify my last post. I didn't actually make the star graphic. I simply made it useable in Transcendence and made the mask. That being said, on to my progress report for today...
Continuing my work on system generation, I worked out a way to make the binary planets work as intended, though the solution was more complicated than I'd prefer. It starts with an empty 1 pixel station called the Barycenter. Then, since I couldn't figure out how to make the planets always be opposite each other (though I tried a number of different ways), I ended up making a rather long table with 20 potential results. Each result is a group of two orbitals. The first result has one orbital with rotation="0" and the other with rotation="180". Each subsequent result is the same as the first one, but with the rotations changed by a factor of 9, just like with ship facings. Rotation="9"/rotation="-171", rotation="18"/rotation="-162", rotation="27"/rotation="-153", etc. The ingame result is a pair of planets sharing the same orbit around the sun while also orbiting a common point on the solar orbit as seen here:
I hope someone can point out an easier way to do this, but for now this does the trick.
Continuing with the success of the Binary planet experiment, I went even further and have started on a star cluster system, using the Cyrannus system from Battlestar Galactica as a template.
I almost regret my decision to do this, because it is turning out to be a terribly complicated and lengthy system to code (if I can work out and easier way to do the binary planets, it can be greatly simplified however). However I have met with some success as seen in this screenshot:
Needless to say, the system is unfinished. Only one of the stars has planets so far, and I still have to do a lot of work on the distances between barycenters, stars, and planets. But so far so good.
Here's a closer look at the planetary system within this cluster. It is based on the Helios Alpha system in the Cyrannus map above. You can see how terribly complicated it is...A central barycenter with two barycenters orbitting it. Each orbitting Barycenter has two stars orbitting it. Each star will have its own system of planets orbitting it. Helios Alpha, the star shown below also has a Binary pair of planets orbitting it. And of course every planet has the potential to have moons orbitting them....
In the end, I may have to end up reducing the number of potential planets around each star to keep the system from being too big, but I also plan to have some custom stargates within the system for jumping between the stars in the cluster or at least between the barycenters. Oh and did I mention that there is also supposed to be a gas giant orbitting the same barycenter as the stars Helios Delta & Helios Gamma?
I think it's safe to say I won't be many more systems like this, if at all.
And finally, I have also gotten the Galactic Map setup. Here's a couple of screenies (the current positions and stargate connections of the 4 systems is not final, but I'm keeping them connected for now for testing purposes)...
).
I haven't quite gotten the equally distant part worked out yet. I had hoped to use the same method as with the binary planets, but it didn't quite work out, so I'm still working on that part, but getting them to share the same orbit and have the two non-giants be on opposite sides of the gas giant were easy enough. Here's a closer look at Helios Delta. The triple planet orbit is the outer one.
Of course, my rather outdated computer is partially to blame (400mhz processor, 512mb RAM, and a tiny 40gb hard drive), it is still a very long time. If I can't figure out how to speed it up, I may end up breaking it up into 4 separate systems (which I'd rather not do) or simply leave it as a unique system with enough incentive to enter it at least once and enough reason not to come back once you leave.
