Habitable moons

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

Moderator: Oberlus

Message
Author
marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

Habitable moons

#1 Post by marhawkman »

I actually did a search this time.... Apparently this hasn't been suggested recently. do you guys think it might be a good idea to have a planet special with a habitable moon?

Lets say Earth is a medium planet, the moon would then be a small or tiny barren planet. If pluto is a small tundra planet then Charon would be a tiny tundra planet. obviously the moon wouldn't be able to be larger than the planet.

Yes I know that all this really does in game is add more planets to systems.

GUI wise? the picture could simply be the same as the ones used for planets. Just a little bit to the left and over the planet's picture. As for colonization, I think the best way would be to treat them as a single entity with a shared population meter.
Computer programming is fun.

User avatar
utilae
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2175
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 12:37 am
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#2 Post by utilae »

Yep thats the best way. Shared population, so a moon extends the planets population.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

#3 Post by marhawkman »

I did a few mockups to demonstrate the concept. and I rethought the rules a bit.

1: planets can't have a moon bigger than they are.
2: A planet can have a moon of the same size.
3: any type of planet can have any type of moon.
4: for moon generation purposes, gas giants are treated as being larger than huge.
5: and asteroids are treated as small. (technically this wouldn't ba a moon, more like an embedded planet, but that doesn't really matter.)
6: gasgiants can only spawn as moons around a gasgiant.
7: asteroids don't spawn as moons, except around gasgiants. (asteroids belts are physically far larger than planets, and simply wouldn't fit in orbit around anything short of a gasgiant, and maybe not even then.) Maybe have Asteroid belts spawn as the "moon" of another asteroid belt.....

Mockups Screens:
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... wishC2.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... urudC2.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... adbury.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... VegaC2.jpg

Unfortunately photobucket squished them all...... Now they're hard to see.
Computer programming is fun.

Daveybaby
Small Juggernaut
Posts: 724
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:07 am
Location: Hastings, UK

#4 Post by Daveybaby »

Personally i'm not sure its necessary to have moons in there, but if you were to do so then I definitely dont think its a good idea to have a planet's moons anywhere near the same size as the planet itself. IMO a planet's moons should be at least 2 levels smaller than the planet itself (e.g. a large planet can only have small and tiny sized moons). Not only does this match up with the evidence we have from our own solar system, but it also makes things a lot easier on the eye and a lot easier to manage in the user interface - for example the planet/moon combo in your first picture just doesnt work visually IMO.

In fact, to be honest, the only planets that should be able to have potentially useful moons (i.e. anything other than small and tiny barren moons and the odd asteroid) are gas giants.

In addition, you probably dont need to name the moons separately in the sidepanel, this just takes up unnecessary space. If you just list the moon's environment type and size that should be sufficient, and that way you could probably fit in up to 3 moons in the same space. If the player wants more detail on the moon they would have to open a dedicated screen.

Also, you have a few weird things in some of those pictures. Do i see an asteroid belt with a moon?
The COW Project : You have a spy in your midst.

Impaler
Creative Contributor
Posts: 1060
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2003 12:40 am
Location: Tucson, Arizona USA

#5 Post by Impaler »

Actualy DaveBabby your way off, Pluto is almost a Double Planet and their likly going to find more such things in the near future. Their is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents 2 perfectly equal size bodies from being a pair atwhich point you cant realy call one the "moon" of the other.

Admitedly its very rare to see that happen so I would propose a logarithmic scale for this kind of thing. Roll a D6 for each "moon slot" aka the maximum number of moons alowed. Each roll less then or equal to the planets size (tiny = 1, Gas Giant = 6) is a Hit, Reroll those Dice and subtract the inverse of the planet size from each die (so subtract 6 for a tiny, 1 for a GassGiant). Now add 1 to each die. Any value of 1 or higher that remain are the sizes of the planets moons.

This isn't to say I have made up my mind to support moons or not, just thats how they could be generated in a manner that roughly matches our solar system.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

#6 Post by marhawkman »

Daveybaby wrote:Also, you have a few weird things in some of those pictures. Do i see an asteroid belt with a moon?
read rule 5. Asteroids can have "moons" but only small or tiny ones. Blah blah,not really a moon, blah blah.... how cares? Ceres is close to the size of Earth's moon and it's part of the asteroid belt. Yes it's not a moon. but that's not important. the important part is that it's there. BTW read rule 3. any type of planet can have any type of moon. hence the reason for having a Barren planet with an ocean moon etc.... BTW there IS a precedent for this. :p Saturn's moon Titan has an atmosphere of methane, and probably liquid methane on it's surface. I'm thnking it'd go in the Toxic category. Pluto would be a double Tundra planet. Jupiter's Galilean moons would be, Inferno, Radiated, barren, and either tundra or ocean for Europa. It's conceivable that if Jupiter occupied Earth's orbit it could have Earth as a habitable moon.

Hmm... I kinda like the idea of having tiny moons more common than larger sizes. Not sure HOW much more common though.
Computer programming is fun.

User avatar
utilae
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2175
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2003 12:37 am
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

#7 Post by utilae »

Impaler wrote: Actualy DaveBabby your way off, Pluto is almost a Double Planet and their likly going to find more such things in the near future. Their is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents 2 perfectly equal size bodies from being a pair atwhich point you cant realy call one the "moon" of the other.
What are those Scientists on about anyway? I mean, some say pluto is a moon, some say it is a planet. The are using size to determine this, but they should be using orbit. I think that if a smaller object orbits a bigger object, then the smaller object is the moon. If the bigger object orbits the sun, it's a planet. If it orbits a planet, then it's a moon, in which case you have a planet that has a moon and a second moon orbiting the first moon.

So, yeah orbits are the way to judge what is a moon and what is a planet.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

#8 Post by marhawkman »

utilae wrote:What are those Scientists on about anyway? I mean, some say pluto is a moon, some say it is a planet. The are using size to determine this, but they should be using orbit. I think that if a smaller object orbits a bigger object, then the smaller object is the moon. If the bigger object orbits the sun, it's a planet. If it orbits a planet, then it's a moon, in which case you have a planet that has a moon and a second moon orbiting the first moon.

So, yeah orbits are the way to judge what is a moon and what is a planet.
Impaler was talking about equal or near equal size objects. Neither one truly orbits the other. they kinda rotate around their shared center of gravity.
Computer programming is fun.

Sapphire Wyvern
Space Kraken
Posts: 149
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:25 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

#9 Post by Sapphire Wyvern »

utilae wrote: What are those Scientists on about anyway? I mean, some say pluto is a moon, some say it is a planet. The are using size to determine this, but they should be using orbit. I think that if a smaller object orbits a bigger object, then the smaller object is the moon. If the bigger object orbits the sun, it's a planet. If it orbits a planet, then it's a moon, in which case you have a planet that has a moon and a second moon orbiting the first moon.

So, yeah orbits are the way to judge what is a moon and what is a planet.
Not really. According to your definition, most asteroids and comets would be classified as "planets".

Pluto is classified as a planet for largely historical reasons. When it was discovered, there weren't any other known objects of similar size in that region of space, and (IIRC) Pluto is bigger than Mercury so it just scraped by.

However, it's been discovered recently that there are actually quite a lot of Pluto-like objects out there. In fact, there's a whole belt of them. A lot of astronomers say that Pluto (and Charon) should technically be called a "Kuiper Belt Object" (NOT a moon) rather than a planet.

I agree with this, because of the following reasons:
1) There are plenty of Pluto/Charon-like objects out there, which are not and will not be designated as planets (eg 2003 UB313 "Xena", which is ~30% bigger than Pluto).
2) Pluto/Charon has a highly irregular orbit in comparison to the 8 "true" planets. It actually comes inside the orbit of Neptune.
3) Pluto and Charon are so similar in size, it's rather arbitrary to call Pluto a planet and Charon a moon rather than simply calling them a binary planet.
4) Withdrawing Pluto's planet status means that we get a tidier classification of solar system objects. We have a star at the center, orbited by the small rocky worlds, then the asteroid belt, then the Gas Giants, then the Kuiper Belt, and finally the (hypothetical) Oort Cloud. It gets rid of "Mr Odd Man Out" Pluto. Of course, we then have Sedna to worry about - it's so far out it can even be counted as part of the Kuiper Belt, but isn't far enough out to be a current part of the Oort Cloud.

But that's entirely besides the point of this thread! So I'm going to shut up now.

Daveybaby
Small Juggernaut
Posts: 724
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:07 am
Location: Hastings, UK

#10 Post by Daveybaby »

Agree, pluto is pretty much insignificant as far as this game goes. Something of that size isnt going to be colonisable to any useful degree and shouldnt be even be modelled IMO, except as an anonymous member of an asteroid belt.
marhawkman wrote:read rule 5. Asteroids can have "moons" but only small or tiny ones. Blah blah,not really a moon, blah blah.... how cares? Ceres is close to the size of Earth's moon and it's part of the asteroid belt. Yes it's not a moon. but that's not important. the important part is that it's there.
IMO the important part is that you have a coherent system that makes logical sense. Ceres isnt a moon. Asteroid belts dont have moons. To implement such a thing in the game is counterintuitive.
BTW read rule 3. any type of planet can have any type of moon. hence the reason for having a Barren planet with an ocean moon etc.... BTW there IS a precedent for this. :p Saturn's moon Titan has an atmosphere of methane, and probably liquid methane on it's surface. I'm thnking it'd go in the Toxic category.
Saturn isnt a barren planet, it's a gas giant. And like i said - i have no problem with gas giants having large habitable moons. I just dont think a medium (or indeed large) rocky planet should have one - just small and tiny ones. Maybe let a huge rocky planet have a medium moon, but no larger than that.
Impaler wrote:Actualy DaveBabby your way off, Pluto is almost a Double Planet and their likly going to find more such things in the near future. Their is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents 2 perfectly equal size bodies from being a pair atwhich point you cant realy call one the "moon" of the other.
There's nothing in the laws of physics, that's true, but due to the way solar systems form it's incredibly unlikely to the point of being impossible for planets of any significant size. Pluto and Charon are both so small and so far from the sun that the gravity effects are negligible on all counts, so its a lot easier for things to become stable partners after the bulk of the planet creation is complete.

Regardless, my main objection is that it looks wrong.
The COW Project : You have a spy in your midst.

ErikAlbert
Space Floater
Posts: 32
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:00 pm

#11 Post by ErikAlbert »

Ah don't you love these threads about realism....

:)

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

#12 Post by marhawkman »

Sapphire Wyvern wrote:Not really. According to your definition, most asteroids and comets would be classified as "planets".
Utilae was only talking about objects large enough to be considered planets.
Sapphire Wyvern wrote:3) Pluto and Charon are so similar in size, it's rather arbitrary to call Pluto a planet and Charon a moon rather than simply calling them a binary planet.
Pluto is twice charons's size.....
Sapphire Wyvern wrote:4) Withdrawing Pluto's planet status means that we get a tidier classification of solar system objects. We have a star at the center, orbited by the small rocky worlds, then the asteroid belt, then the Gas Giants, then the Kuiper Belt, and finally the (hypothetical) Oort Cloud. It gets rid of "Mr Odd Man Out" Pluto. Of course, we then have Sedna to worry about - it's so far out it can even be counted as part of the Kuiper Belt, but isn't far enough out to be a current part of the Oort Cloud.
Tidiness has never been a viable reason to revise classification systems. And it hasn't been decided from what I heard last. Heck one proposal would actually go so far as to classify Ceres as a planet(which it used to be before people noticed the rest of the asteroids).
Daveybaby wrote:IMO the important part is that you have a coherent system that makes logical sense. Ceres isnt a moon. Asteroid belts dont have moons. To implement such a thing in the game is counterintuitive.
Actually for in-game purposes it wouldn't be called a moon. Only the code would refer to it as such.
Daveybaby wrote:Saturn isnt a barren planet, it's a gas giant. And like i said - i have no problem with gas giants having large habitable moons. I just dont think a medium (or indeed large) rocky planet should have one - just small and tiny ones. Maybe let a huge rocky planet have a medium moon, but no larger than that.
Impaler wrote:Actualy DaveBabby your way off, Pluto is almost a Double Planet and their likly going to find more such things in the near future. Their is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents 2 perfectly equal size bodies from being a pair atwhich point you cant realy call one the "moon" of the other.
There's nothing in the laws of physics, that's true, but due to the way solar systems form it's incredibly unlikely to the point of being impossible for planets of any significant size. Pluto and Charon are both so small and so far from the sun that the gravity effects are negligible on all counts, so its a lot easier for things to become stable partners after the bulk of the planet creation is complete.
We can't say that because we DON'T KNOW! One of the difficulties with doing any sort of "realistic" model of planets is that we simply don't have a strong understanding of how planets actually form.
Daveybaby wrote:Regardless, my main objection is that it looks wrong.
what do you mean "looks wrong"? that my mock-ups suck? or is it something else? If it's the first one, then look at this. I managed to get photobcuket not to squish them this time.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... wishC2.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... urudC2.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... buryC2.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f297/ ... VegaC2.jpg
Computer programming is fun.

Daveybaby
Small Juggernaut
Posts: 724
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 11:07 am
Location: Hastings, UK

#13 Post by Daveybaby »

marhawkman wrote:We can't say that because we DON'T KNOW! One of the difficulties with doing any sort of "realistic" model of planets is that we simply don't have a strong understanding of how planets actually form.
Erm. Actually we have a pretty good idea.
Daveybaby wrote:Regardless, my main objection is that it looks wrong.
what do you mean "looks wrong"? that my mock-ups suck? or is it something else?
Its not the mockups, which look fine in terms of quality - its the relative sizes of the planets and the moons. For example, Bradbury IV looks fine, but in all of the others the moons are just too big. They dont look like planets with moons, they look like 2 planets one in front of the other. In many cases, the moon almost completely hides the planet - which isnt useful because the planet is usually the thing we are interested in.

I'd just rather see smaller moons, which also gives the possibility of having more that one moon per planet (which is another wierd thing - why only one per planet?)

Even if we were to have moons that big w.r.t. their planets, i would expect this to be a rare occurrence, instead of the ubiquitous state which your examples show. Why not do some more mockups, showing some examples which are more typical to what we see in our own solar system, and see how they look. For example:

Gas giant with 2 medium moons
Huge planet with 1 medium moon and 1 small one
Large planet with 1 small moon
Medium planet with 2 tiny moons
The COW Project : You have a spy in your midst.

Zpock
Space Kraken
Posts: 101
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:24 pm

#14 Post by Zpock »

These moccups give me the creeps since I actually prefer not splitting up the solar system into smaller units at all. I guess it could look cool if you had a much smaller moon or asteroid belt orbiting the planets mainly as a graphics thing. A huge gas giant with a large moon where the moon is the colony and not the gas giant could be interesting too for flavour.

marhawkman
Large Juggernaut
Posts: 938
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:34 pm
Location: GA

#15 Post by marhawkman »

Daveybaby wrote:
marhawkman wrote:We can't say that because we DON'T KNOW! One of the difficulties with doing any sort of "realistic" model of planets is that we simply don't have a strong understanding of how planets actually form.
Erm. Actually we have a pretty good idea.
I wish....
Daveybaby wrote:I'd just rather see smaller moons, which also gives the possibility of having more that one moon per planet (which is another wierd thing - why only one per planet?)

Even if we were to have moons that big w.r.t. their planets, i would expect this to be a rare occurrence, instead of the ubiquitous state which your examples show.
There is a strong possibility that moons will get weighted heavily in favor of being small. But we haven't even decided if we're going to have them yet.
Daveybaby wrote:Why not do some more mockups, showing some examples which are more typical to what we see in our own solar system, and see how they look. For example:

Gas giant with 2 medium moons
Huge planet with 1 medium moon and 1 small one
Large planet with 1 small moon
Medium planet with 2 tiny moons
I might. I'm kinda doing something else ATM.
Zpock wrote:These moccups give me the creeps since I actually prefer not splitting up the solar system into smaller units at all. I guess it could look cool if you had a much smaller moon or asteroid belt orbiting the planets mainly as a graphics thing. A huge gas giant with a large moon where the moon is the colony and not the gas giant could be interesting too for flavour.
the current consensus is that moons and planets would be colonized simultaneously. IE if you colonize a planet you colonize it's moon as well.
Computer programming is fun.

Post Reply