Planet Rotation Speeds
 

I'm contemplating making planets rotate more quickly. I've sped up rock and ice planets by 10x, and set gas giants to be 3-5x faster still. Note that there is also some random variation in rotation speeds. Check out the following test mod build and tell me what you think:

http://files.spaceempires.net/temp/F...t_Planets2.rar

Note that this doesn't make use of any new planet textures, so you should be good to go if you can run FQM Beta 12 (ie: latest <a href="htp://mm.spaceempires.net/download.php" target="_blank">multimedia pack</a> is installed).

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

I am pretty happy with my planets spinning just twice as fast 0.0002. In testing, I had them going 0.001 and I think there was too much motion on the map.

If I recall correctly, the Random() calls are re-called every time you view a new system... so the planet spins will keep changing.
Can they be tied to planet conditions or the map location hex's (x,y) or something? I don't know if the XFileClasses_Stellar.txt can accept functions/equations/variables.

BTW, there is a FQM bug... with the Lacota Gas_None planets (which personally, I just wouldn't use)...
Planet Surface Empty := PlanetSurface_Gas_None_Empty.bmp
Planet Surface Colonized := PlanetSurface_Gas_None_Colonized.bmp
These bmp's don't exist... and their absence will crash the game, at least if the planets are colonized and then viewed.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Woah... those gas nones have been in there ever since I scripted the stellar objects. Curious that noone ever mentioned them before. I've uploaded a new version without them.

MasterChiToes said:
"If I recall correctly, the Random() calls are re-called every time you view a new system... so the planet spins will keep changing."

Indeed. I'm not going for some crazy level of realism here, though, just trying to break up the monotony.

MasterChiToes said:
"Can they be tied to planet conditions or the map location hex's (x,y) or something?

Not that I am aware of.

MasterChiToes said:
"I don't know if the XFileClasses_Stellar.txt can accept functions/equations/variables."

Many fields do.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Dang, I wish there was a Get_Planet_Conditions and a Get_Planet_Radiation, or even Get_Planet_Minerals and Radioactives... all of these could be argued to relate to the magnetic field which is tied to rotational speed. (Tilt could be tied to climate, temperature, organics and location.)

Well, good luck! My next idea is to put little effect clouds in orbit of protostars. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[edit] I suspect there is another problem with a single Gas_None, it is that they will be disproportionally represented in the quadrant... Unless the random selection isn't weighted against their appearance, 1 in 5 Gas planets will be that Gas None. I could be wrong about this... but when I tried the FQM beta GPT there were a lot of them in Mid-Life and Ancient Quadrants.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

I've never actually seen a Gas None planet in-game before in my FQM testing, so I don't know what to tell ya.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

As for varying up the speeds, what I liked to do when I actually took the time to mod planets instead of copying them from FQM was to make the smaller planets spin faster... not sure if that's realistic or not, but it's certainly doable in the xfiles data file, given that each entry specifies a specific planet size...

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Typically larger planets rotate faster (at least in the Solar System).

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Of course, the 4 largest planets are gas giants, which have no land masses to disrupt fast-flowing winds. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Fyron, the link is broken on your Dev page for "FQM 5.00 Beta 13 PR 1 - 12/10/2007"

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Fixed.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Body ; Sidereal Period ; Synodic Period="Day"
Mercury ; 58.6467 days ; 175.940 days
Venus ; - 243.02 days ; - 116.75 days
Earth ; 23 hr 56 min 4.1 sec ; 24 hr 0 min 0 sec
Moon ; 27.322 days ; 29.53 days
Mars ; 24 hr 37 min 22.66 sec ; 24 hr 39 min 35.24 sec
Jupiter ; 9 hr 55 min 30 sec ; 9 hr 55 min 33 sec
Saturn ; 10 hr 29 min 32 sec ; 10 hr 29 min 33 sec
Uranus ; - 17 hr 14.4 min ; - 17 hr 14.4 min
Neptune ; 16 hr 6.6 min ; 16 hr 6.6 min
Pluto ; - 6 days 9 hr 17.6 min ; - 6 days 9 hr 17.0 min

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

The Terrestrial planets can be expected to turn slower due to 'tidal forces' dissipating their rotational angular momentum. If you check out the length of a day on ancient earth, it was much shorter than the Jovian planets.

In general, for a stable climate, I would agree that smaller planets better turn slower.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

I think you would have to make a number of assumptions about the event that formed the Moon to know what Earth's original rotation rate was. Although, I agree that it must have slowed since then.

Also, tidal forces would have little effect on Mars (two very small moons), and none on Venus (no moons) - although something must have happened to Venus to make it rotate "backwards". It's generally thought that terrestrial planets with a satellite as large as the Moon are very rare. However, Mercury's rotation is very strongly determined by tidal forces from the Sun.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Venus's odd rotation (very slow retrograde) combined with the entire surface being only ~500 million years old (evenly random distribution of craters over entire planet = same age for entire surface, the number of craters gives the rough age estimate) adds up to one known cause: a huge farking impact event.

Re: Venus
 

As a longtime reader/viewer of SF, I can tell you that your analysis is messed up. Up until the 1950s, Venus was inhabited by a technologically-advanced humanoid race consisting entirely of extremely hot babes. Then something happened, and now the place is a wasteland. Perhaps their cycles all synched up.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

From everything I've read over the past several years, the general consensus is that a roughly Mars-sized planetoid ran head-on into the proto-Earth, hitting with sufficient force to liquify, well, pretty much everything. The impact blasted up sufficient material into orbit that eventually coalesced into the Moon. This theory is supported by the fact that all the Moon material they've ever studied is the same as the material the Earth's crust is composed of, but nothing deeper than the crust, suggesting a massive impact origin.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Of course. What I meant is, we don't know things like the relative velocities or the angle of impact. Thus, we don't know what Earth's original rotation rate was.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Ahhh I misinterpreted. But yeah, they can estimate those quantities, but have no way of pinning them down with any degree of scientific accuracy.

Re: Planet Rotation Speeds
 

Fun Fact:
Though the sun has 99.9% of the solar system's mass, it has less than .5% of its angular momentum. Jupiter, with only a fraction of a percent of the mass in the solar system has about 99% of the angular momentum of the solar system.

http://urantiabook.org/archive/science/jupiter.htm