Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed Kolis
Oh, it is still going... sorry for the lack of updates!
This week, along with various behind-the-scenes changes/fixes/additions, there are now realistic units of distance (km, ls, au, ly), and the "mod editor" app now supports saving and loading, though you still can't edit much of anything yet!
The "realistic units of distance" probably merits a bit of explanation: Yes, a planet might have a radius of, say, 5,243 kilometers. And yes, it could be several au from the planet to its star, which might have a radius of 1,000,000 km. And the next star over, yes, that might be 5 ly away!
So how do we display everything on screen without it all being teeny tiny little sub-pixel-sized dots? :P
That's where logarithms come in  Since the scale of space IS so vast, we're now using a logarithmic display scale for the zoomed-out views of objects; only VAST differences in size will be noticeable. So Jupiter will look bigger than Earth, but not that MUCH bigger, at least not until you zoom in on it (we're still maintaining the actual sizes for collision detection and zoomed-in views!) |
Great news Ed Kolis! This is music to my ears. Finally a logarithmic scale system integrated with an epic space strategy game
I don't think it has ever been done before but mind you I will be completely fulfilled with such attention to detail.
Some space strategy hardcore fans are very focused on combat styles and how things will be weighed up. Being an astronomy buff as well as into military strategy and heavily into facts/figures and logistical considerations... I tend to embrace realism as well as the entertainment or X factor.
Very few people understand how vast space is. And I enjoyed the days of Elite when games of the 80s also tried to educate us by trying to create a guestimate to how our stellar neighbourhood might be.
I hope Star Legacy will have a real stellar map mode, where you can start an empire from earth, whereby all stars (at least within the 1st 100ly) are represented accurately (by that I mean distances and star types and sizes)
Here I found a clip that I think sums up astronomical scale nicely
WOW
Note that the last star (biggest known to date) would put its diameter almost at the orbit of Saturn!!!
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