A Few Planetary...suggestions? Facts?

[Chamomileable]

Now, I realize that the devs are working their butts off, and the game is still in open beta, but I thought I would mention a few things that are currently a little dumb about the "smart" level design. I know I'll sound like I'm whining, but I think that making each planet feel unique will keep the game from getting as tedious. I'm not an astronomer, but I've got a little knowledge about space, and I figured I'd give some handy info about planets and such so maybe one day we can have the levels feel a little less samey between planets. I'm not too good with big pictures so I'd love to hear any ideas people get from the info.

 

-Mercury makes three rotations about its axis for every two revolutions around its orbit, which means that you're only going to see the sun move across the sky once every two mercurian years. This means things are going to be very hot and very dry. Lots of light from the sun since it's the closest planet to it. Installations on Mercury would be better suited underground due to the intense radiation on the surface.

 

-Venus is hotter than Mercury despite being farther away from the sun due to the fact that it has an atmosphere. Looking out ultra heat-resistant glass onto mercury would be like looking into a furnace, with molten craters and flaming clouds of carbon dioxide beneath an outer atmosphere of sulfuric acid clouds.

 

-Earth during Warframe has been completely ravaged by the Grineer, and I really don't know much else about it.

 

-Mars' surface is covered in red iron oxide "dust" that gives the planet its color. It wouldn't be unheard of to colonize since it has a thin atmosphere, but dust storms would pose a hazard to electrical equipment.

 

-Ceres is sort of an underdog in the solar system. It's located in the center of the asteroid belt and is smaller than Earth's moon, but we think it may be covered in oceans of water (we've got a probe en-route there scheduled to arrive in 2015).  Due to its location in the asteroid belt, ships travelling at high speeds above Ceres' atmosphere would need to be cautious not to sustain extensive hull damage from debris.

 

-Jupiter has a highly dense atmosphere of hydrogen and helium filled with ammonia clouds. Windspeeds on Jupiter reach over an estimated 360kmph! That's fast!

 

-Europa is a moon of Jupiter (it orbits the sun in-game though for some reason) and is completely covered in mineral-rich frozen water, with a frozen planetary sea of salt water underneath, due to its induced magnetic field, we think the core may be made of metallic iron.

 

-Saturn has 9 rings and 3 arcs around itself composed of ice, rocks, and dust. The planet is very similar to Jupiter in makeup, but may have a dense rocky core made of metallic hydrogen and helium.

 

-Uranus (huhuhu) is the first of the "Ice Giant" planets and is similar in makeup to Jupiter and Saturn, though it contains much larger amounts of frozen water, methane, and ammonia. Uranus has a radically tilted axis so that its north and south poles are almost lined up with the equators of other planets.

 

-Neptune is almost identical in makeup to Uranus, but the atmospheric pressure would be crushing, and the temperatures on the surface would be thousands of degrees.

 

-Spectroscopic analysis of Pluto's surface reveals it to be composed of more than 98 percent nitrogen ice, with traces of methane and carbon monoxide. The face of Pluto oriented toward Charon (one of its moons) contains more methane ice, while the opposite face contains more nitrogen and carbon monoxide ice

 

-Haumea isn't currently in the game, but it's the second subplanet after Pluto located within the Kuiper Belt. Haumea is odd because it has a very oblong egg shape and an atmosphere covered in frozen crystalline water, despite being the temperature that amorphous ice would form.

 

-Makemake also isn't in the game, and we don't know much about it in the real world since it has no known satellites to estimate its mass from. It's approximately 2/3 the size of pluto and is most likely covered in methane, ethane, and nitrogen ice.

 

-Eris is a subplanet about 27 percent the size of Pluto, which is covered in methane ice, and because of its eliptical orbit, it gets cool enough for methane to condense in its atmosphere.