Idea- ship orbits.......

from Sins Forums
Isn't it strange in a game that involves ships and planets that you cant actually orbit the planets? An idea I had was since you can manually make ships move where you want and follow a pattern by repeatedly hitting shift, couldnt buy code, or scripting, you should be able to tell a ship (PRESET PATTERN)or fleet to enter an orbit once it enters a well. Maybe have three orbit choices, edge,center,close....this would serve to /automate / clear orbital defenses in a circular pattern around the planet with out actually have to zoom in to said well.
9,955 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Eh, the workaround is to make a fleet and shift-click attack targets around a gravity well for the flagship only.  All of the other ships will get towed along for the ride.  Then disband the fleet and continue playing normally. 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Ships will already auto-attack everything in the grav well. What's the point of this?

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I thought auto orbiting ships a cool idea.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

In concept yes. Reality no.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

I really like the idea of orbiting ships, simply because it'd look cool and more er... realistic.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

A near earth orbit spacecraft takes about 90 minutes to go around the earth. That's at what ... 150 miles above the planetary surface. Go to geosynchronous range and it's 24 hours! Lunar distance, nearly a month. If orbit speeds are realistic, not much change in position during normal game play.

Even if you do speed it up a lot, something close to a planet will go around faster than something farther out. And now the game has a lot of extra calculation to do.

SpaceWar, 1962, cheesed the emulation of gravity in various ways. It has become a tradition in space games.

I remember a physics mid term question that began, "A satellite is in geosynchronous orbit above the north pole. Calculate the ..." followed by various tedious sub questions on its dynamics.

I answered, "the satellite is firmly attached to a massive concrete pillar 20 feet high and it ain't go'in nowhere" I got full credit and a few stars beside my answer. We learned later that about 30% of our class tried to calculate the orbital parameters!