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Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 4:14 pm
by testtubegames
The old suggestions thread was amazing -- but grew a bit big and hard to read. So here's a concise(ish) list of people's ideas for the new simulator:

Completed:
-Merging planets
-Radius of planets dependent on mass
-Moving stars
-Change planet color
-Define mass by typing it in
-Center the screen on a planet and track it (even if it is accelerating).
-As on option when tracking - other planets get orbits plotted relative to the planet, making for some sweet orbit shapes! (Beans and such)
-Change G
-Slow down or speed up time
-Grid zooms smoother
-Grid scale actually represents something
-Circular orbit shortcut for CW and CCW
-Tool tips (aka words that pop up when you hover over icons that tell you what they do)
-Wide range of force laws
-Change velocity/mass/location of existing planets (or groups of them)
-Expand a planet's menu - allow changing variables on the fly, boosting speed, and numbers about the planet such as speed, distance traveled, energy, age, etc.
-Crosshairs toggle-able
-Link to Change-Log
-Full Screen mode (Full Version)
-Trail properties (length, color, velocity sensitive saturation)
-Draw in force arrows (toggle-able)
-'Fixed stars' that move... aka bodies that move yet don't feel the pull of other objects
-Different planet densities (i.e. gas giants vs. rocky planets)
-Snap-on-grid option, maybe allow different grid spacing
-Dust (lots o’ particles)

Going to include:
(god-like powers)
-More collision modes: merge, ignore, fracture, bounce...

(visual)
-Draw in gravitational potentials (and maybe Hill circles)
-Showcase Lagrange points

(physics)
-General Relativity - (only in so far as there’ll be a Black Hole object that behaves like the real deal)
-Increase the accuracy in fast-forward mode whenever possible, and a toggle-able option to prevent exceeding the uppermost accurate timestep

(user interface)
-Rotating frame of reference
-Undo button for deleted objects
-More color selection

(general)
-Safeguard against system overloads (and the blue screen of death that random got)
-A way to save and load easily in-game (without having to save codes all the time)

(learning)
-Gravity guide with some lessons and tidbits about the physics

Still pondering:
-Curated gallery of neat stuff
-Planetary rotation
-Tides and tidal locking
-View the world from the surface of a planet, as their astronomers would
-Different tabs you can switch between
-Better prediction lines that take into account future motion

Unsure if feasible/in scope:
-Delete orbital path when object is deleted
-Life
-Fly a rocket around

If you have new ideas, or modification/clarifications to these existing ideas, this is a great place to post them. I'll keep this first post updated as new ideas come in, and as old ideas get integrated into the simulator.

Edit: 5/1 -- Version 0.28.01 out, orbit lengths, fling fixed stars, and more
Edit: 5/14 -- Version 0.29.01 out, added dust!

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:08 pm
by robly18
I haven't got anything to add to this, except the usual good luck! Looks pretty neat, here's to hoping most of these make it in!

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 8:42 pm
by wtg62
Perhaps the ability to speed up or slow down the simulation, would be a great addition?

It could take a toll on performance, though.
Maybe when sped up, the simulator should switch to a more simple physics system.

Edit: Doh! It's already there, silly me! Man I need to read better :P

2nd Edit: I have a different suggestion, now. It's a minor one. Merging planets shouldn't change color if the impacting planet has less mass than the impacted planet.

3rd Edit: Random! It's 62, not 32! D:

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 9:16 pm
by A Random Player
Don't forget show forces (each/net/both/neither), and plotting against changing reference frames (like my game and this mod for KSP (check out the pics!))

Edit: Woah, ninja'd by wtg32
Edit: Rotation shouldn't be that hard to display, just draw a line from the center to a certain point on the surface. Two variables/planet: initial orientation and angular velocity/frequency. Tidal locking would be harder though.

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:22 pm
by testtubegames
wtg62 wrote:I have a different suggestion, now. It's a minor one. Merging planets shouldn't change color if the impacting planet has less mass than the impacted planet.
Agreed. Meant to fix that, but apparently forgot. I'll update it in the next version.
A Random Player wrote:Don't forget show forces (each/net/both/neither), and plotting against changing reference frames (like my game and this mod for KSP (check out the pics!))

Edit: Rotation shouldn't be that hard to display, just draw a line from the center to a certain point on the surface. Two variables/planet: initial orientation and angular velocity/frequency. Tidal locking would be harder though.
Ah, show forces, I'll add that to the list. Plotting against changing frames... my thought for this was to allow you to 'track' an object. So you could center the screen on a planet, say, and in the process see the world from it's (possibly accelerating) frame. Orbits would be drawn in that accelerating frame, too. Is that kinda what you had in mind?

As for rotation - I guess I don't see why planets would have any rotation at all. Just a random value I assign them when they are created? What would keep it from being arbitrary? So in normal use it doesn't necessarily seem like it adds to the sim. When merging happens, then collisions could cause interesting spinning effects. So that *would* be cool. Tidal locking would be neat, too, but I haven't really investigated how easy or hard that'd be to simulator. So yeah, it's in the 'not sure' column at the moment.

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:51 pm
by A Random Player
testtubegames wrote:
A Random Player wrote:Don't forget show forces (each/net/both/neither), and plotting against changing reference frames (like my game and this mod for KSP (check out the pics!))

Edit: Rotation shouldn't be that hard to display, just draw a line from the center to a certain point on the surface. Two variables/planet: initial orientation and angular velocity/frequency. Tidal locking would be harder though.
Ah, show forces, I'll add that to the list. Plotting against changing frames... my thought for this was to allow you to 'track' an object. So you could center the screen on a planet, say, and in the process see the world from it's (possibly accelerating) frame. Orbits would be drawn in that accelerating frame, too. Is that kinda what you had in mind?
Yeah, like centering the screen on a planet at all times, and plotting where something else ends up. Right now, for example, a moon's orbit is plotted relative to the sun.. which doesn't look very neat and simple.

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:58 pm
by testtubegames
A Random Player wrote:Yeah, like centering the screen on a planet at all times, and plotting where something else ends up. Right now, for example, a moon's orbit is plotted relative to the sun.. which doesn't look very neat and simple.
Great, that's what I was thinking, too. Changed that item in the list to be more explicit.

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 10:41 am
by A Random Player
testtubegames wrote:
A Random Player wrote:Yeah, like centering the screen on a planet at all times, and plotting where something else ends up. Right now, for example, a moon's orbit is plotted relative to the sun.. which doesn't look very neat and simple.
Great, that's what I was thinking, too. Changed that item in the list to be more explicit.
Still seems a bit off; the current list say to pick a planet (planet A) and put it in the middle of the screen, but nothing about other selected planets (and its own trails), which are now plotted relative to planet A instead of the background. I'm pretty sure you know what we're talking about, though.

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:00 am
by testtubegames
A Random Player wrote:Still seems a bit off; the current list say to pick a planet (planet A) and put it in the middle of the screen, but nothing about other selected planets (and its own trails), which are now plotted relative to planet A instead of the background. I'm pretty sure you know what we're talking about, though.
Yeah, changed it again. I understand your point, too -- made me realize I'll really need *two* ways of tracking. Since sometimes you might just want to follow a planet (to see where it goes), but keep the orbits drawing the background - so they don't get destroyed/redrawn every time you track a different object. And other times you may want the orbits drawn relative to it (for beans and such).

Re: Suggestions! (new)

Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 10:05 pm
by wtg62
Another suggestion:

Shouldn't mass and size be two different independent variables?
(i.e. they shouldn't affect each-other)

I thought about this considering some planets in our solar system have nearly the same size as Earth, but the mass of those other planets differ A LOT!
testtubegames wrote: -Circular orbit shortcut for CW and CCW
Will we be able to create a circular orbit for an object around our reference (followed) object (like in ARP's suggestion), using this shortcut?