Understanding 4546- and Base Construction Aethstetic.

Sunseahl

So I've been rattling over ideas in my head for about a year now.... and i just feel the need to share them officially.

If any Dev wants to casually debunk anything it'd be greatly appreciated.

Also potential spoilers? I'm not sure what to classify as spoilers at this point....


4546- The Binary Planet?

Many folks have taken to calling the orbital body of 4546B the "Red moon." Honestly I thought that too, at first. The more and more I read about planets the more convinced I am that "Red moon" isn't really a moon... It's the secondary planet, 4546A. This would make 4546B half of what is called a Binary planet. Now, just like in terms of stars, a binary planet is two orbiting bodies, usually of near identical mass, that orbit one another in tandem as they traverse an orbit around a system star. in fact this binary orbit is crucial for maintaining the two planets own orbital range from the sun. If one planet were to be removed the other planets orbit would decay until it found a new alignment orbiting the system star(resulting in the boiling away of all atmosphere and water on 4546B) OR fling it off into space making it what is typically referred to as a "Rogue Planet" That is a planet that orbits no star and generally traverses the cosmos independantly. So yea.... I definitely think 4546- is a binary planet.

I'm just bothered by one problem... the rest of the skybox for 4546B doesn't rotate.... Meaning that further off "white moon" is in a constant geosynchronous orbit to 4546B as are it's stars. I know this could simply be a development limitation but that little(or maybe big depending on just how far away it is) moon drives me NUTS constantly being in the exact same location every night.



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Human uniformity in construction?

So according to all the stuff in game Torgal Corp is a Mongolian Empire company and Alterra is a Federation company... This makes sense with you finding Chinese potatoes in crop planters at the left behind island base and whatnot, yea? and how Sunbeam is a Federation aligned ship but looks very Alterra-ish.....

so my question, thought, whatever becomes..... These are two separated space empires. Why do they SHARE a common base-building aethstetic? I understand the game-development reasoning of "it's just cheaper to use these decayed alterra models." I TOTALLY get that. i just wonder why there wouldn't be design aesthetics to differentiate the two human empires from each other. I mean did the Degasi look like the Sunbeam? Degasi was a Mongolian ship by way of Torgal corp.... Not a Federation ship by way of Alterra. In this i'm actually both kind of GLAD and upset that we don't see remnants of the Degasi itself. Taking apart the Degasi means we'd never see the actual design differences between the Mongolian Empire and Federation Alterra(less resources used on an unusable ship design) but it also means that whatever they did craft using said pieces(like the Floating Island Bases) would also have Mongolian influences...

So I'm left having to wonder if the Fabricator, like the ones we make, would have industrial variants for large-scale building(like ships) and is just a uniform company unit from a company independent of both empires that sells fabricators to both empires.....

SnailsAttack

Sunseahl wrote: »

I know this could simply be a development limitation but that little(or maybe big depending on just how far away it is) moon drives me NUTS constantly being in the exact same location every night.

omg i thought i was the only one

Anyways, interesting discussions. The white moon that "orbits" 4546b annoys the everloving fuck out of me. It doesn't move, it doesn't have phases, it only appears at night, and it looks as flat as a pancake. I think it'd be really neat if it it orbited 4546b like the orange moon.

However, what'd be even cooler is if it appeared to orbit the red planet, OR orbited both planets in a sort of figure eight over a fairly long period of time. (which would be the coolest thing ever, although maybe not possible)

It'd also be cool to see a re-design of the degasi bases in a different style, instead of just having them appear as reskins of the alterra's habitats. Those assets would probably take a while to design, though.

Sunseahl

Interestingly, 4546A eclipses that moon... not sure if this is just my imagination or if it's an actual bioluminosity filter but it seems that when 4546A eclipses the moon the water gets darker.

Tailor

I would say yes? I was thinking that when certain PDA's talk about manufacturing the phase gate, they are referring to a mega structure in space that allows huge ships to travel through it. The Aurora probably had massive fabricators to make specific sections out of resources found in asteroid belts or on planets.

TheKubaW

 

AkuMasterofMasters

I always thought that the bases looked the same because its to building code, they both use it because its the best design anyone has.

chriswmackey

I just wanted to add that, when I first realized the paths the moons were taking, it bothered me too until I spent 3 hours sitting on a bus wondering if there was an orbital pattern that could explain the movements of the moons and sun. I came up with a plausible scenario that didn't violate any laws of physics. In this scenario, it seems reasonable to assume that 4546b is tidally locked with the white moon (hence it's static position in the sky) and this is absolutely possible since we have directly observed this phenomena with Pluto and Charon.

As I thought about it more, I realized that 4546b being tidally locked with the white moon might actually be necessary to explain why the red moon never sets below the horizon, which is odd given that the game seems to take place on the equator of 4546b by virtue of the path of the sun. I'll try to make a new post with some visuals to explain the scenario soon. In any case, if you are an orbital physics nerd like myself, there may be some hope of not feeling bothered once you know that this type of orbital pattern might be possible.

HCP2311

There are Degasi wreck pieces despite Torgol stating in his PDA entry that he told Maida to scrap the wreck. The wreck pieces are identical to Aurora pieces.

I think it is more of a real-life lack of interest in making cosmetic differences between the Mongols and Feds than any lore-friendly reason for them looking the same.

Maalteromm

HCP2311 wrote: »

There are Degasi wreck pieces despite Torgol stating in his PDA entry that he told Maida to scrap the wreck. The wreck pieces are identical to Aurora pieces.

I think it is more of a real-life lack of interest in making cosmetic differences between the Mongols and Feds than any lore-friendly reason for them looking the same.

I don't think like that.

If you get a few random cars from different parts of the globe, wreck and hack them to pieces, then scatter those pieces around it would be very difficult to tell them apart.

starkaos

It depends on what they mean by Planet 4546B. It could be either the second planet of the 4546 star system or part of a binary or tertiary planet. Distance has a lot to deal with how big a moon appears in relation to the planet it orbits. If our moon was half the distance away from its current location, then it would look much bigger.