Planets... or billiard balls?

[Suicide Junkie]

1 and 2 are moddable.

I have survived an asteroid collision before, just barely, and in a heavily armored battlecruiser that took severe internal damage.

[Wydraz]

I'll buy that. I guess you could fiddle with the planet size in the data files and create hi-res skins for them too. I look forward to doing that.

Do you have an example of how you'd add an atmosphere? I've got no clue on this, aside from some vague comments in another topic on adding some visual effects.

[Suicide Junkie]

I'm no graphics artist, but the halos seen around stars would make great atmospheres, IMO. Coloured to match the type of atmosphere, of course.

You could always simply add blinking nav beacons to the map around planets, just like you have buoys on lakes to indicate rocks & stuff.

Unexplored or undeveloped systems without such nav beacons would of course be more hazardous.

[Captain Kwok]

If you've got the power to run the game faster, than just increase the planet sizes. It makes it more interesting not knowing what might be behind a planet...

[Phoenix-D]

It is interesting that you can survive ramming ships (or, sometimes, STARS) but ussually not asteroids.

I was totally inside a star once. Not sure what happened, because when I circled around to do it again I hit and died.

[jimbob55]

sphere for planet.
translucent sphere for atmoshpere...

texture both and set the outer one spinning to get some cool storm / cloud effects

[Wydraz]

That works in 3D programs, but can you make a planet translucent in SESF?

I like SJ's idea of using a star's halo, if you can make it a lot dimmer. Otherwise it might look like a system full of stars...

[ September 25, 2003, 06:19: Message edited by: Wydraz ]