Fwurg

[Brend]

We have a lot of projects that result in things in space in a specific system. Projects such as the Solar Wind Generator Array, the Extra-dimensional Particle Collectors, the Lagrange Point Conduit Stations, and the Planetary Defence Grid all create systems and stations in orbit or in the system. In the future we will design more of these projects as more systems will become fully developed.

In order to make things more interesting and to promote the making of choices I would like to propose a mechanic to limit the number of things in orbit around a planet, and in the system as a whole. Furthermore, this mechanic will also allow us to better estimate the cost of not having something on the planet's surface but building it in space.

Me and Mercury just went through different systems, and what follows is how we propose to handle things.

Orbital Capacity - Proposal

We propose to handle a system's capacity for system-wide and orbital projects per orbit, the same way power is generated. A system wide project will simply use up a number of points per orbit, automatically scaling it for larger systems.

Each orbit will have a certain amount of Orbital Capacity, determined by the sum of generated Orbital Capacity of worlds in that orbit. The star of your system will also have an Orbital Capacity of itself, creating the possibility of solar projects.

The following list gives all factors that determine the Orbital Capacity of a planetary orbit:

• Base for planetary orbits: 1
• Large Moon: +1
• Small Planet: +2
• Medium Planet: +3
• Large Planet: +4
• Ice Giant: +5
• Jovian Giant: +5
• Brown Dwarf: +5 (note, a Trinary star is still in this category, regardless of chosen colour)

For example, an orbit with a Medium Planet and a Medium moon will have an Orbital Capacity of 4 ( = a base of 1 + 3 for the medium planet).

For the star (or binary stars) itself, the following factors are relevant:

• Binary Stars: 6
• Other Stars: 7

For example, a White Main Sequence star has an Orbital Capacity of 7.

Orbital Capacity - Current Projects

The current projects should of course cost Orbital Capacity.

The current projects will have the following costs:

• Solar Wind Generator Array: 1
• Extra-dimensional Particle Collectors: 1
• Lagrange Point Conduit Stations: 1 in each Orbit
• Planetary Defence Grid: 1

Note that a project can only be completed if there is enough Orbital Capacity everywhere the project requires it! Note that this means that any system with an empty planetary orbit can only support a single system-wide project. This is a very good point for technological advances ^_^

Orbital Capacity - Examples

Mercury has determined, for each active player system, the total amount of Orbital Capacity. This gives you and idea of the distribution of Orbital Capacity you can look forward to.

• Guaire System: 27
• Hub System: 20
• Kal System: 32
• Lumo Duo System: 33
• My'enru system: 33
• Novalia System: 36
• Parumecaetes System: 41
• ShasKar System: 44
• Smi-Halek System: 22

[Elmer]

Is there a specific reason why planetary bodies create more points, instead of taking points?

I mean, to it sounds logical to use the amount of available free lunar orbits somehow. More unused lunar orbits means more space for insane projects.

[Brend]

That's a whole different scale of projects o_O

Building a moon is rather different then launching a planet-covering network satellite of missile launchers. In fact, I would argue that to build an articifial moon you'd need an empty lunar orbit. And the finished project might (if it is equivalent to a large moon) even generate Orbital Capacity.

Planetary bodies generated orbital capacity because you can actually orbit something around them. That's why an empty planetary orbit (or an asteroid belt) has only a single point of capacity: there's nothing to orbit around.

[Elmer]

Yes, but orbiting around an object requires space as well. So if a planet has the capacity to support multiple moons, than it should have the capacity to support multiple space projects. Not having moons in orbit is even beneficial in that case as they don't take up space in any form (not having a moon creates no physical object blocking your space hotel, distorting your gravity field, lie in the way of your point to point hyperspace swing etc.)

It also gives the option for players who have invested little in physical system to have more upgrade options: bad starting system but great grow potentials, or great start system but bad grow potentials.

[Brend]

The whole fact that there is no moon to block your space hotel is exactly the problem. You need gravity wells for Lagrangian Points.

Again: scale. A moon and a network of sattelaties and space stations aren't even in the same league gravity-wise! The Cradle is an exception to the normal projects: it is over the top ridi-enormously-culous large! Not a single project can even compare to the size of a moon, as it would require at least 50 000 just for the mass alone... The Cradle doesn't use Orbital Capacity, it uses up an actual .

It also gives the option for players who have invested little in physical system to have more upgrade options: bad starting system but great grow potentials, or great start system but bad grow potentials.

Welllll: systems with empty orbits will most likely have put a lot of their into , which usually indicates really great systems instead of bad ones. In fact, systems with a lot of filled orbits are usually not at all good, because they have a lot of and worlds. Having empty orbits is indicative of having a good system: those systems with 'little invested in physical systems' have the most perfect eden worlds with corporations and cherries on top!

Orbital Capacity is about the capacity to actually orbit something. With nothing there, there is nothing to orbit, and hence no Orbital Capacity.

[Elmer]

But wouldn't a moon, or a multitude on moons not be able to distort your gravitational available space? (I'm not going to read the wiki article at this moment :(, maybe tomorrow.)

1 planet with no moons = more space for satellites as the moon wouldn't rip them out of orbit, bash them away, or block their nice view?

A planet with a lot of lunar orbits apparently has enough gravity to keep a lot of heavy moons in orbit (moons are heavy). But this would allow for a lot of other kind of orbital stuff as well. You can station the planetary defence grid very far away, to have your space elevator close by. And the planet ring somewhere in the middle of it all.

Is the issue is that you need space, or is the issue that you need an orbit, because in that case unused lunar orbits sounds pretty logical to me. Planet with many lunar orbits -> planet is able to support many things in orbit -> much options for other kind of orbital thingies other than moons.

[Brend]

But wouldn't a moon, or a multitude on moons not be able to distort your gravitational available space? (I'm not going to read the wiki article at this moment :(, maybe tomorrow.)

[sarcasm]Thanks for not reading the explanation. It makes it much easier to discuss this[/sarcasm] (with tags for your convenience :P)

Read the article first, then reconsider your post.

Once more, by the way, this is about SCALE. It's not about the amount of free space available. This whole mechanic is an abstraction to make the game more fun. Not to accurately represent the system... Obviously there is an enormous amount of space available. But only very little of it can actually be economically used without the need for big honking space engines to keep your space station in the correct location.

I'm also calling on Mercury to handle some of the explanation, as I seem unable to make myself understood here.

[Mercury]

Is there a specific reason why planetary bodies create more points, instead of taking points?

I mean, to it sounds logical to use the amount of available free lunar orbits somehow. More unused lunar orbits means more space for insane projects.

Points != orbits

Its not "are there enough orbits to physically stabilize the system". You can basically orbit at any distance over a planet or moon and remain in a stable orbit, so long as your speed is correct. Thus there are, in fact, infinitely many possible orbits.

Points, however, are not about orbits, but about gravity wells.

Gravity wells, generate by large systems, provide stable orbits which balance between multiple gravitationally bound objects called Lagrange Points. It requires 2 objects, in fact, the primary and the object circling the primary. These locations are basically a free ride.

However, besides the regular gravity well, there is also Hyperspace, which likewise is impacted by gravity wells, and which is very important in the star wars setting. Saddle-points where both hyperspace and normal space gravity wells intersect are excellent stable points to set up projects.

Those saddle points require two major objects. A star and a planet, or a planet and a moon, and these must be quite big to actually create saddle-points.

Both objects must be big enough to make a gravity well that lies at a stable point in space (i.e. not within one of the objects atmospheres for example), and those gravity wells must be reasonably closely together.

We give the "points" for these saddle-points based on the orbiting object, not the primary. Thus, a planet provide points (with its star) and a large moon provides points (with its planet).

Now, besides these planet generated points, there's also the star itself. Stars are maaaaaaaasssively bigger than planets such as to dwarf them completely. It does not generate saddle points but rather its gravity well is so deep that its interaction with hyperspace creates natural local minima that can be used in a fashion similar to saddlepoints. Binary stars are a little less effective in this because their gravity wells interact with one another reducing stability, and trinary stars similarly become even less effective.

Naturally any hyperspace engineer could calculate the exact details of this, but I'll save you from the multi-dimensional math.

Thus, since big planets and moons generate big gravity wells, they can support more objects stably. When an orbit is empty, there is no gravity well, thus no points.

From an OOC perspective, we wanted a system where players are able to build up some significant equipment in their system without giving out an unlimited supply of room. By limiting the number of options, you need to choose between things, rather than "having it all". This makes for more interesting game-play.

Some system-wide projects benefit players with Main Sequence stars (many orbits) more than players with Binary stars (fewer orbits). Thus, we made system-wide projects cost 1 for each orbit, to help balance this out.

Planet-wide project benefit only one world, but a large planet obviously has more benefits than a small. Thus, large planets should not get as many points as smaller planets. That said, players make a bigger investment for a large planet than they do for a large moon. Therefore, large planets should get fewer points -per total spent-, rather than fewer absolute.

Finally, systems with fewer, better planets have an advantage over systems with more, lower quality planets. We wanted to take this into account and give systems with more planets a small advantage in this particular aspect of the game. Its minor, but enough to give a small boon.

The exact values were determined by the desire to have, on average, about 4-5 spots per orbit in a system (which the current system satisfies), plus a few more for the star itself, combined by a desire for a simple system (1-2-3-4-5-6-7 is pretty easy), and taking into account the above balance issues.

Does this make more sense?

[Gerben]

I like this idea.. as it promotes us to make choices that influence the way we handle larger, system-wide special projects. Instead having everything and anything everywhere, with this proposal we'll see that factions will, hopefully, make their own choices and create a diversity with the Union, that is independent from the direct tax-driven economy.

[Fedor]

I agree with Brends proposal.

If the proposal goes through I think I would like to change my system to get rid of the asteroid belts, I'm not sure yet how exactly I would change my system. This is because those would be a large constraint on any future system wide projects.

[Brend]

Instead of fully refeaturing your system, I would advice you to look into technologies that enable you to use empty planetary orbits or planetary orbits with asteroids.

Me and Mercury already discussed this beforehand, and we already decided that the an empty orbit point generation tech should be easily accesible, specifically because of the system-wide constraint.

[Stuiter]

I agree with Brend and think that techs should be able to solve problems which you have for system wide systems and other things.
This forum is about role-playing and not about having the biggest and best economy.

[Fedor]

Fair enough, I also talked with Elmer and Brend about some of the potential technologies that could be involved in Asteroid Belts and they are more interesting than just straight up planets, as I already have some of those. So I will keep them.