suggestion/question

[deon_de_ruijter]

I studied astronomy in the past and most planets in the universe have moons.
In evochron legacy, not that many planets have moons.
My question is, is it possible to add more moons to planets to make the game even more realistic?
Or is there a reason why this wouldn't work out quite well?

And can stars be made a bit bigger?
Because now most of the planets are twice as small as stars.
Not much bigger, because that wouldn't ruin using tractor beam to get fuel.

Thanks for responding.

[Vice]

I doubt I will be making significant environmental changes to the existing framework of the game at this point. But if I can scrape together an array of more unique moon textures that are high resolution enough and also convertible into the projected format the game requires, a few more might be a possibility.

Stars are kept the size they are for gameplay purposes and several technical requirements, they are basically about the size of Neutron to White Dwarf class as mentioned in this recent thread: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=13982

Increasing star size further would generally serve no beneficial gameplay purpose since it would reduce sector space for various options and existing entities/systems. Ultimately, stars would just appear larger at the expense of having to take longer to fly around them, reduce space for building next to them, require shifting comet orbits, delete existing stations, and more. So the drawbacks tend to outweigh potential benefits.

[deon_de_ruijter]

I completely understand the reason to keep stars at the size they are now.

When I use the galaxy map, I find 4/6-star systems where there should be room for 1 or 2 moons without ruining the gameplay.
I really hope it is possible, because then Evochron would the most realistic space flight sim I know off.

Thank you for your help.

[Marvin]

But if I can scrape together an array of more unique moon textures that are high resolution enough and also convertible into the projected format the game requires, a few more might be a possibility.

Someday, astronomers might come to realize that many asteroids are actually moons which have been split apart, often by tital forces (as what happened with Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9). Ergo, using asteroid textures for new moons would not (IMHO) be out of place.

[deon_de_ruijter]

Well, we do already realize that.
In fact, I worked on a project for the ESA in which we had to determine what the origin was of Deimos, the moon of Mars.
Our theory was that it originated from a small planet which circled around mars and slowly corroded into smaller asteroids.
That brings me on the idea that those moons could be added to evochron legacy, just like some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Of course, only if possible.
But it really would be a nice addition to the game.

[TraderDan]

I guess is this a bad time to ask if it's possible to make one of the moons into the death star by changing it's texture? Asking for a friend ;-)

[Vice]

As an unsupported option, you could technically texture it to look like a death star, but I'm not sure how good it would look. The following filenames can be imported (into a '\media\environment' folder) for custom textures (following the same kind of projection method as the background starfield):

moontexture0.png = top side
moontexture1.png = rear side
moontexture2.png = bottom side
moontexture3.png = front side
moontexture4.png = left side
moontexture5.png = right side

[TraderDan]

Haha yes! You know I'm going to try this :-)