The Planets In Space Confuse Me.

[Aeriax]

So I recently managed to stab my way into Saturnian space, and found myself holed up in a ship, as per usual. Upon completely wrecking a small detachment of grineer I decided to go look out the window.

Suddenly Mars. And unidentified other planetary body. Is that Mercury?

I'm a space guy. In fact I'm an astrophysicist. And I like to think I have an innate sense of scale and distance in terms of bodies in the solar system.

Pretty sure Mars and Mercury aren't both taking up like 30-40 degrees of the sky from Saturn. Speaking of Saturn, where is it? It looks like so far the only spacebox art asset is this. So I'm asking- Is this a placeholder, from which more diverse and unique spaceboxes (and lighting- Remember that the sun gets much, much dimmer the further out you go due to the 1/r^2 relation brightness has)?

tl;dr: why is mars both visible and huge from saturn while saturn is invisible thats weird.

[LunarWind]

I would bet it is place-holder art.

That said, I love how many people apply their real-world knowledge to videa games.

No really, not being sarcastic. That guy who broke down the sitting animation and showed how it should be corrected? Brilliant.

This is less of a specialized observation, obviously, but still entertaining to read about.

Perhaps make some suggestions of what you'd like to see in 'space-box' art?

What kinds of interesting phenomenae could we witness from our windows into the void?

[Toko]

So I recently managed to stab my way into Saturnian space, and found myself holed up in a ship, as per usual. Upon completely wrecking a small detachment of grineer I decided to go look out the window.

Suddenly Mars. And unidentified other planetary body. Is that Mercury?

I'm a space guy. In fact I'm an astrophysicist. And I like to think I have an innate sense of scale and distance in terms of bodies in the solar system.

Pretty sure Mars and Mercury aren't both taking up like 30-40 degrees of the sky from Saturn. Speaking of Saturn, where is it? It looks like so far the only spacebox art asset is this. So I'm asking- Is this a placeholder, from which more diverse and unique spaceboxes (and lighting- Remember that the sun gets much, much dimmer the further out you go due to the 1/r^2 relation brightness has)?

tl;dr: why is mars both visible and huge from saturn while saturn is invisible thats weird.

I agree with your point but I could also say why do I have special powers? How come I can never fully die? Why is Lotus cute?

[ValhaHazred]

I said it in another thread, but I'll repeat myself. I want planet specific skyboxes. It can wait, but that is definitely a wish of mine.

[Schrodingers_Trap]

Maybe we can assume that the planetoids are actually some yet undiscovered moons of Saturn. That happens to look like Mercury and Mars.

[ValhaHazred]

A red planetoid that just so happens to have the most distinctive canyon in the solar system? It bothered me in Mass Effect when they tried to pass Mars off as Klendagon. They had to draw it anyway, why did they copy an actual planet?

[Playford]

I agree that planet specific skyboxes would be awesome.

But on the subject of astrophysics I have an idea that is completley pointless, but would be friggin' awesome to see in-game, and that is that the solar system hologram in the main menu is accurate to the real-time positions of planets in the solar system.

Note that I'm not talking about scale of planets or their distance from the sun. That would make the menu... unwieldly, to say the least.

I'm just talking about their orbits and relative angular positions be accurate.

While niether a programmer nor a physicst, as an engineering student with a backgound in computer science, I have enough experience with both to know that done properly this would be really simple to do. Here are two options

First is that the login server is running a simulation of the solar system and every time you log in, along with the standard login data exchange, it also sends you the current postions of the planets. To keep the load on the server to a minimum, planetary positions are recalculated every hour.

Second option is the client running on your pc uses date/time to calulate the positions of planets. This would take the load away from the server but there is the possibility that every time you log in your frame rate drops until the calculations are complete.

This game is not an astrophysics simulation engine, and it shouldn't be, but having semi-accurate solar system would be one of those little details that just puts a smile on your face.

[Fuzz_]

I

Second option is the client running on your pc uses date/time to calulate the positions of planets. This would take the load away from the server but there is the possibility that every time you log in your frame rate drops until the calculations are complete.

pretty sure it's client side already. but i had Saturn cutting Neptune(?) with it's ring. The system is accerated but not properly simulated.

[__Kanade__]

Some think that this game takes place in an alternate timeline, cause with the way the lore describes where Warframe takes place, it makes it sound like it's way past the Sun's natural lifespan or at least supposed to be in its Super Giant state, so there shouldn't even be any rocky inner planets, much less an asteroid belt. Maybe in this timeline, each planetary system has more then one planetoid, even Mercury's skybox art has 3 planets, none of which look like Mercury.

[Playford]

I

pretty sure it's client side already. but i had Saturn cutting Neptune(?) with it's ring. The system is accerated but not properly simulated.

I meant that the positions of planets reflect their current real life position, so those real life positions need to be calculated, currently the menu is not a simulation, it's just an animation.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Playford

[Fujimura]

Well, some of us want a big party once the 8 planets align, (the asteroids/dwarf planets don't count ;x RIP planet pluto your a dwarf.) Though I don't hear about the planets aligning often in real life so i imagine even on an accelerated scale is unlikely and from what I can tell the planets just move however slow or fast they want to when I log in and seem to jump several season fairly rapidly, my tenno is an old man by now.

[WhiteCr0w]

First and foremost: An astrophysicist plays this game. That is categorically awesome.

Secondly, I fully agree. I noticed it as well and just assumed it was a placeholder (Hopefully). I wouldn't doubt they decide to change it out during some future polish passes.

[Kacc]

its just greneers teleported planets)))))

[TooMuchDamage]

A red planetoid that just so happens to have the most distinctive canyon in the solar system? It bothered me in Mass Effect when they tried to pass Mars off as Klendagon. They had to draw it anyway, why did they copy an actual planet?

Oh good, I wasn't the only one that thought that.

There is so little window time in this game I didn't even notice it.

I would like to see some more open domed space structures with some natural elements in them. Like a bio-dome with trees, grass, and flowers in it but NO Pauly Shore! It would be a nice respite from blue steel corridor, green ventilation system, and revenge of the blue steel corridor.

[ValhaHazred]

The livestream showed off a few new tilesets and they said more are on the way.

[Nuntium]

Some think that this game takes place in an alternate timeline, cause with the way the lore describes where Warframe takes place, it makes it sound like it's way past the Sun's natural lifespan or at least supposed to be in its Super Giant state, so there shouldn't even be any rocky inner planets, much less an asteroid belt. Maybe in this timeline, each planetary system has more then one planetoid, even Mercury's skybox art has 3 planets, none of which look like Mercury.

 

Personally I don't see any merit in those claims. IN the time it will take the sun to go Red giant humanity will either no longer exist, or have evolved to a completely different state, as we can see from the hostage missions, where we so rudely de-materialize that Corpus crewman, that is not the case.

[ValhaHazred]

Yeah the sun won't go Red Giant for a couple billion years. We have time.

[DaoZa]

I can't wait to see your face when you find out that Venus is an ice planet.

[Nuntium]

I can't wait to see your face when you find out that Venus is an ice planet.

 

That crossed my mind a few times

[IcarusNine]

I can't wait to see your face when you find out that Venus is an ice planet.

They're all ice planets.

Even Nef Anyo's tileset is the ice planet.

[ValhaHazred]

Yeah, I'm rationalizing that as not enough environment tiles so far, hopefully more in the future.

[Nuntium]

Yeah, I'm rationalizing that as not enough environment tiles so far, hopefully more in the future.

 

Most likely, it is beta after all. Hopefully they will add hot environments for Mercury/Venus (even if you can only look outside, not actually travel outside). or barren, rocky environments for some of the outer planets' moons.