Binary Stars

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eleazar
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Binary Stars

#1 Post by eleazar »

It just struck me today that we could have binary stars without changing a line of code or universe generation. And without introducing any new concepts.

The game supports-- but currently doesn't much use-- alternate images for the stars. Smaller companion stars can be added to the graphic. This both makes the galaxy map more interesting, and gives more recognizability to different parts of the galaxy.

In the screenshot below i've just been using neutron stars as the companion-- but of course other stars will and should be used.

I can't think of any downsides, but a few megs increase in filesize
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Bigjoe5
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Re: Binary Stars

#2 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Cool. I like it.
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eleazar
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Re: Binary Stars

#3 Post by eleazar »

Committed with more variants.

It doesn't always look great in the sidebar, but i'll worry about that later.
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eleazar
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Re: Binary Stars

#4 Post by eleazar »

Now that I think of it, it may be a problem coordinating the appearance of the 3D system map with such binary stars. But I guess we can worry about that later.

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Bigjoe5
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Re: Binary Stars

#5 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:Now that I think of it, it may be a problem coordinating the appearance of the 3D system map with such binary stars. But I guess we can worry about that later.
Probably one would just put the companion star in the first planetary orbit or something. Unfortunately, that would mean that the game would need to know which systems are single and which are binary so that planets aren't allocated to those slots. Maybe not a big deal, since having different star sizes based on colour means that something like that has to be done anyway.
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pd
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Re: Binary Stars

#6 Post by pd »

I don't think this works at all and frankly find it annoying you committed this stuff right away.

The images read much less as a being a star now. It's just as if there's an unnecessary blob near by.

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eleazar
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Re: Binary Stars

#7 Post by eleazar »

pd wrote:I don't think this works at all and frankly find it annoying you committed this stuff right away.

The images read much less as a being a star now. It's just as if there's an unnecessary blob near by.
Practical progress is made (and contributors are encouraged) when things are committed, not when content languishes in forum threads for months or years.

If you don't like them, that's fine, let's discuss why and how the concept might be improved. The fact that i've committed them gives you a much firmer foundation to critique/praise/insult the stars than if i had just posted a few screenshots, since you can look at them in-game at any zoom level. And if it turns out the best thing is to get rid of them, SVN allows us to revert to any point, though in this case simply deleting the new files does the same trick.

EDIT:
This post and the one following have a bit of historical interest.

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MikkoM
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Re: Binary Stars

#8 Post by MikkoM »

pd wrote:It's just as if there's an unnecessary blob near by.
Could the solution simply be to enlarge those circles around the stars so that there is always a small gap between the star and the "blob", but both are still inside the same circle? Or would different zoom levels make this impossible?

Edit. Just downloaded the most recent Windows build and it seems that every star now has that "blob" even if it is not a binary star. Is this still work in progress?

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eleazar
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Re: Binary Stars

#9 Post by eleazar »

MikkoM wrote:Edit. Just downloaded the most recent Windows build and it seems that every star now has that "blob" even if it is not a binary star. Is this still work in progress?
Huh? There was never a commit that replaced all stars with binary graphics. There should be a significant percentage of single stars.

And i don't know what you by "has that "blob" even if it is not a binary star". If it looks like a binary star it is one. It's just a variant graphic, there is no other kind of "binary-ness".

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MikkoM
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Re: Binary Stars

#10 Post by MikkoM »

eleazar wrote:And i don't know what you by "has that "blob" even if it is not a binary star". If it looks like a binary star it is one. It's just a variant graphic, there is no other kind of "binary-ness".
Image

There seems to be a purple blob near the Giausar star on the galaxy map, but the side panel only has one star in it.

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eleazar
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Re: Binary Stars

#11 Post by eleazar »

MikkoM wrote:
eleazar wrote:And i don't know what you by "has that "blob" even if it is not a binary star". If it looks like a binary star it is one. It's just a variant graphic, there is no other kind of "binary-ness".
There seems to be a purple blob near the Giausar star on the galaxy map, but the side panel only has one star in it.
I dunno. Is this a game you loaded instead of starting new after the binary change?
In my testing the sidepanel stars would use a file of the same name. Currently the images for binary stars look the same on the galaxy map and in the sidepanel.
Sometimes the companion is cropped out due to the way the star is positioned in the sidepanel, but in this case that shouldn't be an issue.

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MikkoM
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Re: Binary Stars

#12 Post by MikkoM »

eleazar wrote: I dunno. Is this a game you loaded instead of starting new after the binary change?
In my testing the sidepanel stars would use a file of the same name. Currently the images for binary stars look the same on the galaxy map and in the sidepanel.
Sometimes the companion is cropped out due to the way the star is positioned in the sidepanel, but in this case that shouldn't be an issue.
It was a new game with revision 4173. I even deleted my config.xml file just to be sure, although as far as I know it should be updated automatically nowadays. So probably the big question now is, am I the only one with this problem?

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Uziush Vielky
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Re: Binary Stars

#13 Post by Uziush Vielky »

Couldn't the binary stars be more equal in size? It looks funny the way it's right now. I understand a binary star system has two stars orbitting each other. The size of the little "blob" suggests it's a very small star orbitting a very big star. It just doesn't feel right to me.

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eleazar
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Re: Binary Stars

#14 Post by eleazar »

Uziush Vielky wrote:Couldn't the binary stars be more equal in size? It looks funny the way it's right now. I understand a binary star system has two stars orbitting each other. The size of the little "blob" suggests it's a very small star orbitting a very big star. It just doesn't feel right to me.
In many, probably most cases, binary stars are of very unequal size. The fact that they are orbiting their common center of mass, does not mean that the center of mass must be in the middle.

Science aside, i did it that way because:

1) to fit in the small space allowed at least one of the stars has to be fairly small
2) due to the way that the halo effect and zoom scaling works, the main star needs to be centered in the space or things will look weird and broken.

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em3
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Re: Binary Stars

#15 Post by em3 »

MikkoM wrote:There seems to be a purple blob near the Giausar star on the galaxy map, but the side panel only has one star in it.
I've seen similar scenarios where the second star is barely visible on the side panel, only noticeable by a faint glow near the screen's edge. Note, that your side panel is being cut off, so maybe any signs of the second star are clipped too.
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