Liset. Do The Planets Spin A Bit Too Fast?

[DecapitatingJim]

So I was looking at the pretty backdrops on the Liset, and I noticed that Earth was spinning pretty fast. Faster than it should be I'm guessing. I dunno if this is just me though, can someone else confirm my mad ramblings? 

[noveltyhero]

Yeah I know, but at least the clouds move on separate speed to the planet itself, I appreciate that :D

[DecapitatingJim]

That's true. I'm just nit picky and caffeine fueled x3

[PsychedelicSnake]

It's largely an aesthetic/eye-candy sort of thing. I'm assuming many people would wonder "Why aren't the planets spinning?" when in reality it's just not as fast as they expected it to be.

[CptFaustas]

Maybe we are orbiting around them, which would make spinning look faster.

[[DE]Momaw]

I try to not to read into such things.  Video game artists pretty much NEVER do things properly from an astrophysics standpoint. Consider that the background of stars doesn't change. This means that the ship would need to be in orbit around the planet with a rotational period equal to its orbital period so that the ship is always pointed in the same direction.  This means that the planet would appear to go around us, in much the same way that the sun appears to go around the earth, rather than sitting in a fixed relative position to our cockpit.  If you wanted to have the planet appear to be stationary from our perspective, the ship would need to be tide-locked to the planet which means that the stars in the background would be moving; plus we would be seeing both the light and dark sides of the planet rather than having it revolve on a stick with the light always shining from the same side.

 

(It should be pointed out that you could successfully set up an orbital solution with the planet remaining in a fixed position relative to the viewer AND always showing its light side, by parking at a Lagrange point except for L2...   But that would mean we are FAR away from the planet in question and it wouldn't show as anything more than a dot.  L2 would let us park closer to the planet in question but we would be facing the dark side of it)

Edited September 1, 2014 by Momaw

[Liminal]

Maybe we are orbiting around them, which would make spinning look faster.

I like to imagine I'm the one moving :D

And when there are other ships I imagine I'm chasing them, so we are all moving at the same speed.

[-Himari-]

Moved to proper section.

[DecapitatingJim]

Moved to proper section.

Sorry about that. Thought this seemed like more general than anything really specific.