Feasability question here; what would happen if you made all bodies except the sun in a system be ships, with 'patrol' orders? I'm not sure if it would work, but it seems to me you could embed a second set of patrol orders for stations (which would become ships with a 100% wreck chance) and have them orbit around their home planets as well, thus keeping them along for the ride.
This would get rid of the orbit lines that you see on the system map, of course, but would it work otherwise?
Orbital mechanics?
-
dvlenk6
- Militia Captain
- Posts: 519
- Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 6:56 am
- Location: Sanctuary and beyond
- Contact:
I'm not sure about workability of that...but 
You could use a 1x1 pixel black graphic for 'planets' and put them at the same distance from the sun as your orbiting ones as little invisible planets so that the orbit lines would still be visible on the map.
At least, I think that would work.
- - - - -
What about the eliptical orbits?
I don't know how you could make a planet/ship orbit (patrol) in an elipse.
You could use a 1x1 pixel black graphic for 'planets' and put them at the same distance from the sun as your orbiting ones as little invisible planets so that the orbit lines would still be visible on the map.
At least, I think that would work.
- - - - -
What about the eliptical orbits?
I don't know how you could make a planet/ship orbit (patrol) in an elipse.
-
Fossaman
- Militia Captain
- Posts: 556
- Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:56 am
- Location: Traveling to the galactic core
Aye...you'd have to have 'perigee' and 'apogee' settings for that to work. Just an idea, really. It would make things a bit more interesting if you could come back into a system and go 'woah! Everything's DIFFERENT!'
X-ray laser! Pew, pew pew!
> = = = = ۞
> = = = = ۞
I think that would be a great feature to have and is something I believe is missing from the game.
Also, I think it should work but I also think that each planet would have to be treated in the same manner as ships, graphic-wise. What I mean is that each planet image would need a set of vertical and horizontal columns for the rotations else you'd get invisible planets in some areas during their movement around the sun.
And the plus side to doing that would be axis--while the planets rotate around the sun, they could also be spinning in their own axis, allowing different views of the planet (and you can control the turn-rate too). A bit more eye candy.
Also, I think it should work but I also think that each planet would have to be treated in the same manner as ships, graphic-wise. What I mean is that each planet image would need a set of vertical and horizontal columns for the rotations else you'd get invisible planets in some areas during their movement around the sun.
And the plus side to doing that would be axis--while the planets rotate around the sun, they could also be spinning in their own axis, allowing different views of the planet (and you can control the turn-rate too). A bit more eye candy.