NB Astronomy 201 *SPOILERS*

Discussion in 'The Library' started by Bowen Bloodgood, Dec 4, 2015.

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  1. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Just to simply things a bit. This thread is just me tracking data. Will try to keep the first few posts updated.

    I will be using an odd system to identify specific constellation locations based on the number of total constellations that are lined up.. being 12 of them.

    N0 (or N-0) is "true North". With N +/- 3 being on the horizons. N+3 (or N3+) is the eastern horizon, N-3/N3- is the west. Anything beyond 3 is right out! Once the number 3, being the 3rd number.. it is below the horizon. However, part of the reason for thinking this is up is for easy reference and possibly as an aide for determining and references possible events that cannot be witnessed from Novia. There's a good chance this system may be modified at any time.. or dropped entirely.

    Known Constants
    1 NB Year = 14 Earth Days = 336 Hours = 336 NB Hours
    1 NB Month = 28 Days
    Complete Planetary Alignment = 800 years

    All 'planetary' bodies including Daedelus & the sun orbit on the same plane.
    Midnight is at the top of the hour.

    Each position in the above mentioned system represents a 30 degree difference in orbit.

    Assumptions
    These numbers will remain constant.
    Assumption: Orbital speeds are intentionally set such that the orbit time for any celestial body can evenly divide X number of real hours.
    All angles at set points are probably divisible by 5 degrees. Keep in mind when accounting for human error in the absence of in-game tools. (ie sextants)
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2015
  2. Bowen Bloodgood

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    <Reserved>

    Green passes the Tear
    March 26, 476, Late Night (1:10a)

    Sacrifice passes through the Tear.. and I've confirmed this by what I'm witnessing right now and from a previous screenshot..

    Midnight? Friday/Saturday April 12th, 470 cN2+
    Midnight Saturay April 13th, 473 cN2+
    Midnight Friday April 14th, 476 cN2+ @5pm

    Also, White is on the left edge of the Tear on all occasions.

    Observation: The Sword is not "upright" at N0 as originally thought. It instead slants to the left. To which extent not yet measured.

    Saturday, April 14th, Noon (5:30pm) - N0. Orange passes Red during a double eclipse.
    Friday, April 20th, Noon (11:30pm) - N0, Orange passes Black during double eclipse
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2015
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  3. Bowen Bloodgood

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    This post right now will list known orbital information. Orbital speed is the time it takes in Earth time to complete one full orbit. When possible I'll include an orbit number where 1 is closest to New Britannia

    Feel free to offer up any corrections if you spot an error.

    1 Daedelus - 7h
    2 Blue - 18h
    3 Yellow - 16h
    4 Red - 12h
    5 Green - 11h
    6 Orange - Orbit Speed = 3 Hours/Days. Apex on the half hour at Noon.
    7 Purple "dumbbell" - Orbit Speed = 2 Hours/Days.. Apex on the hour at Midnight.
    8 White - 21h
    9 Black - 24h

    Constellation orbital speed = 336 hours
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2016
  4. Daxxe Diggler

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    OK, my first shot at posting my observations of the sky in SOTA. I was at work while trying this and had to duck in and out of the client to avoid the boss... so this may not be 100% accurate. Still, thought it was worth noting as something to be verified later.

    First off, I was observing from Aschfahl Festung, a POT at the southern tip of The Hidden Vale... just in case location of observation makes any difference.

    Today, December 4th, At 3:41 PM (EST) I observed purple (hard to tell color due to sunlight, but you can tell it's the dumbbell shape) beginning to intersect what I believe to be the Tear constellation...

    [​IMG]

    Now, right about that time, my boss walked nearby, so I had to tab out of the game :eek: so I couldn't watch what happened as it passed through.

    However, I tabbed back in at 3:45 PM and it was raining in game. Could it be that when purple (or any other planet/moon) intersects with the Tear it rains? I was so excited that I found something worth posting that I forgot to get another screenshot of the rain, but I wrote down the Date/Time info under the compass and it read:

    Monday April 9, Spring 476 PC, Dusk Full Moon, Light Precipitation, Heavy Winds (again, that was 3:45 PM EST in RL Earth time)

    Anyway, hope that's the kind of info that might help the cause. I'll continue to add findings as I notice them.
     
  5. Bowen Bloodgood

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    lol please don't do this at work. I don't want you to get in trouble. :) But yeah that is the kind of information I'm looking for.
     
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  6. Daxxe Diggler

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    If I wasn't doing this, I'd be mining or crafting stuff or something else in-game anyway. :p
     
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  7. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Speculation: Orbital speeds may be in factors of 2.

    Edit: Ok this idea was totally bumkis.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2015
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  8. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Ok this is significant.. Sacrifice passes through the Tear.. and I've confirmed this by what I'm witnessing right now and from a previous screenshot..

    at Midnight Saturay April 13th, 473
    at Midnight Friday April 14th, 476

    Also, White is on the left edge of the Tear on both occasions. Also both times the Tear was at or near N2+
     
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  9. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Saturday, April 14th, Noon (5:30pm) - N0. Orange passes Red during a double eclipse.
     
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  10. Bowen Bloodgood

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    One should really check out existing lore.. which I have done after sitting here for nearly 11 hours.. Assuming Portalarium did a proper job adhering to existing data.. a full planetary alignment occurs every 800 years. That means that all orbital times must go evenly into 800. Meaning possible orbital speeds for 8 planets are.. 2, 4, 8, 10, 16, 20, 25 and 32 hours.

    Unfortunately this clashes with some of my data which suggests the speed of Orange should be a 3 hour orbit. Also, rather unfortunately.. while the order of the planets seem correct.. the speeds do not match their relative orbital positions. For example. Purple has a verified 2 hour orbit.. yet it is 3rd to the last planet out. The closest planet which is blue.. has an orbital speed which should be about 16 hours.

    I think I understand now why the devs seemed to be surprised that no one has figured out the data.. because #1 They assume the data is correct and #2 it's the old Britannia solar system.. which is already well documented at Ultima Codex.

    Oh and.. I wouldn't expect a full alignment during the lifetime of SotA.. it will take over 33 real life years to occur.

    I will try to make my case for fixing the sky some time over the weekend.. but numbers I seem to be coming up with (most of which still need to be verified) seem to match up somewhat with old Britannia data.. but their order so far goes something like this..

    16, 20, 10, 8, 3, 2, 25, 32 (numbers rounded off to the nearest available number from Ultima data).
     
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  11. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Just to be thorough I realized that 5 hours is also a valid orbital time. Though it only matters so much as making it easier for players to track. In terms of the mechanics of the solar system it only really matters that the orbital times go evenly into 800.

    An interesting note is that the last known astronomical alignment occurred during Ultima VII. Now if we just let the system run continuously these alignments would take some 33 1/3 (give or take) Earth years to occur.. BUT it's been a few centuries at least since then. If such an alignment occurs during the time Shroud is live (or even before launch which I find unlikely).. that would give us a fixed time frame of either 800 or 1600 years between VII and that particular alignment.
     
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  12. Curt

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    Bit wield speculation if it is so when a planet intersects with tears it rains. Could it be so each planet stands for a different region, so if the planet connected to a region intersects tears its rains there?
     
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  13. Vyrin

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    Here's one for you....

    Friday. May 27, Spring 476 Evening

    [​IMG]
     
  14. Bowen Bloodgood

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    yay positional confirmation on blue..

    At this point though I'm back to simply waiting for Portalarium to fix the sky but any data confirming current findings is welcome. :) Or if you can disprove anything so far that's welcome too. :)
     
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  15. Bowen Bloodgood

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    For those interested in just how badly the sky is currently mucked up..

    Problems with the Sky

    And I JUST figured out that in all likelihood, the order of the constellations in both groups are most likely reversed! (See page 2 of the linked post). It's about at this point that I'm fixing on chucking out nearly all of my data to date. lol Well with the exception of the planetary order. That much seems to accurate.

    So for anyone wanting to help out with this.. I humbly ask that you focus on proving or disproving anything currently posted in this or the 101 thread. Devs have a LOT of fixing to do.
     
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  16. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Something I didn't really think to much about but is actually pretty significant. As the orbital times are exclusively whole hours.. planets appear on the horizons on either the hour, half hour or quarter hour... simplifies things quite a bit when trying to figure out what the actual orbital durations are. :)

    Edit: Oh consequently, in the system I mentioned above with positions N3- through N3+, planets will pass these points at times evenly divisible by 5..

    Oh and appearing on the horizon on the quarter hour means the orbital duration will be odd
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2015
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    Further observation.. Your position on the overworld map IS very much important. You can't really trust the compass to point you to "true north"/N0 as it relates to the sky itself. Rather center the compass on the sun at noon (bottom of the hour) and make note of the position. That's your N0/true north. Fortunately for me, where I have been observing from just outside of Caer Dracwych is pretty close to 'N' being center.

    Edit: Speculation.. with the numbers I expect to confirm.. the current system will have an astronomical alignment every 528 years.. this includes the odd 3 hour orbit for Orange/Sacrifice.. and what I expect to now be an 11 hour orbit for Green/Justice. This doesn't appear to be coincidental.. but why 528?
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2015
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    Correction to this data. These current orbital times do NOT match what should be old Ultima. The current set of possible orbital durations appear to be..

    2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 16, 22 & 24 with an 8 planet alignment occurring every 528 years.

    The order of these times by orbit however.. including Daedelus.. so far looks a lot like this..

    7, 16, ?, 12, 11, 3, 2, 24, 22

    Pretty funky.

    Here's an interesting thought.. planet orbit durations could be reversed in the same way that the constellations currently are. If you reversed the order according to constellation group.. the times would be..

    2, 3, 11, 12, ?, 16, 22, 24.. with Daedelus being the odd body out which is perfectly fine.

    Edit Again: If we add 33 to the possible orbits.. the new alignment happens at 792 years. Close enough to 800? Also 9 & 18 becomes viable numbers but 16 is be out.
     
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    Ok new numbers..

    7, 18, 16, 12, 11, 3, 2, 22?, 24, mostly verified.

    16 is the odd one out in this set.. all others fit evenly into 792.. So to fix this little discrepancy they'd need to use either 9 or 8 hours instead of 16. 22 is still in question.. but it's either that or 33.

    Edit: Correction: 16 works.. see below.
     
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  20. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Ok a small update here. I'm now about 90% certain that white's orbital duration is 21 hours. While I haven't had a good opportunity to sit and watch it for several days.. I have noted that on every April 13th, white is on the left edge of the Tear at Midnight.. Meaning it's orbital duration must go evenly into 336 hours (or one NB year). The number that does that within the possible range for white's orbit is 21.

    I um.. also need to correct myself.. I have in fact been not doing proper math.. I've been dividing 792 by the hours in the orbit when in fact.. I should have been multiplying 792 by the hours of the year.. (336) then dividing by the orbit duration..

    792 * 336 = 266,112 hours between complete astronomical alignment. So rechecking the numbers..

    266,112 / 24 = 11088
    266,112 / 21 = 12672
    266,112 / 18 = 14784
    266,112 / 16 = 16632
    266,112 / 12 = 22176
    266,112 / 11 = 24192
    266,112 / 7 = 38016 (Daedelus)
    266,112 / 3 = 88704
    266,112 / 2 = 133056

    All whole numbers.. so all current orbital times check out.

    Just for the heck of it I rechecked the orbital times against an 800 year alignment. 11 and 18 hour orbits don't fit.. but the rest do.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2016
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