NB Astronomy 301 *SPOILERS*

Awesome.

 

Ok.. the next simulation.. which is rendering now.. is going to be the system as it stands right now.

I've done a little work on the planets and added 12 of the 14 constellations. I left out Order and Chaos for now for simplicity.

There are a few discrepancies to note. The orbital duration of the white planet still needs to be verified and the constellations aren't perfectly set in relation to each other.. but for the purposes of demonstration this will suffice. The numbers are the latest in the 201 thread based off of the 792 year astronomical alignment. Of which, the yellow planet's orbit (being 16 hours) is the only one that doesn't fit the alignment schedule.

At the moment there's no way for me to tell what the date is.

Will have further comments once the simulation is posted.

 

For reference, the top middle is noon. The simulation starts with an astronomical alignment, but this simulation doesn't represent any known date. It is simply a demonstration.

Again, the white planet's orbit duration isn't confirmed by me.. it is a best guess based on available numbers for a 792 year alignment.

As with the first simulation, all orbital times are whole hours which has so far been confirmed. Notice how all major alignments (3-4+ planets) take place in the same location.. true north and typically (always?) occur at noon. Many of which also occur with Daedelus.. in both cases they are impossible to see as Daedelus hides the entire event or the sun makes it too bright to see. Leaving astronomers as the only ones who know it's happening but still being unable to witness. By design?

Also notice the orbital speeds in relation to each other.. orange and purple are by far the fastest planets and yet their orbits are near the middle.

 

This is very cool work, Bowen. I swear, I'm not trolling here, I have to assume my ignorance stems from not reading all of your previous material. But why does the Sun orbit the planet, instead of regular solar system behavior?

 

Richard has it set up as a geocentric system and also because that's how it would actually be set up in-game. Much easier to simulate that way. It's not unlike how world maps in games where you can go off one end and show on the other is actually a torus rather than a sphere. Even if it wasn't a geocentric system the actually in-game mechanics would still probably be this way.

 

Amazing work Bowen! I really really like where this is going! What did you design that with?

 

I'm using an older version of 3DS Max for this.

 

Ah cool -- fancy stuff Very impressive stuff. I can't wait to see where you go with this

 

The next one I may work on tonight now that I've found a free video converter to use before uploading to YouTube.. (1/10th the video size.. so much better).. Will be what I think the solar system SHOULD look like.

I will be rearranging the orbital durations according nearest to farthest.. offsetting the sun so the alignments happen at midnight instead of at noon.. and changing the order of the constellations to match the planets. Will try to have that posted either tonight or tomorrow.. as I want to have it done before Friday.

 

Note that in Ultima 7, the sun was not part of the rotational matrix and instead assumed that Britannia was rotating to make the days. It is the stationary object near the top of the orrery (although realistically, it would be quite distant instead of being simply another orbital body) I'm assuming an in-game representation would use a similar layout.

 

An actual in-game orreyy should probably do that yes. Unless you're the lord of Chaos who's moondial actually has the sun in orbit for some reason.

 

Ok this is probably the last one of these I'm going to do for awhile. The last one is how the solar system is.. more or less.. This model is how I believe it is intended to be.

I've offset the set by half an orbit which.. in-game would actually be offsetting all the planets. This was just easier. The result is that rather than passing true north at noon, planets now do so at midnight. Likewise, the major planetary alignments also happen at midnight instead of at noon. This way they'll be observable so long as Daedelus isn't in the way.

The order the constellations are now reversed in both groups so that they will appear in the sky in the same order as the planetary orbits. The orbit durations have also been rearranged so that the planets are slower the farther out you go. Also the textures for the chaos group of constellations is upside down in this model for demonstration purposes.

Orbital times are now..

Daedelus - 7 hours
Blue - 2 hours
Yellow - 3 hours
Red - 9 hours
Green - 11 hours
Orange - 12 hours
Purple - 18 hours
White - 22 hours
Black - 24 hours

Once again middle top is 'true north'. These numbers should fit a 792 year alignment. Other numbers that could be used but are not are.. 4, 6 & 33

 

Bowen I'm just curious if the Isle of Storms is visible form the ground?

The fiction says it was crafted by magical forces from the shattered moons...



But it's clearly not part of the Daedelus belt.

 

Technically it should be but it doesn't seem like they've singled out an asteroid for a special appearance.. They probably should since people are going to be looking for it.

 

I mean you can see from the orientation of Daedalus as viewed from the isle of storms that it's not even in line with it and it is much closer to NB. Screenshot was taken from isle not NB surface.

 

LOL I would call that a whoops. So basically, the Isle of Storms needs it's own unique sky..

 

Thing is it seems to have one. Just you know... Also wrong.

 

Just to keep threads up to date... I'm not reasonably sure that white's orbit is 21 hours long based on having observed it's positions multiple times on the same day of several years.. which could only be possible if the orbit duration went evenly into a NB year (336 hours).. 21 hours is the best time to fit this scenario.

Also all orbit durations now confirmed to fit a 792 year alignment. Assuming all data is accurate we should now be able to predict when the alignment would occur once the sky is finalized.

 

The new theoretical model is most impressive! Good work.

 

Thanks..

I have a new challenge now. As per my rantings in the 201 thread... it seems alignments will actually happen every 33 years rather than 792.. So the challenge I'm trying to figure out now is how best to simulate planetary rotation such that longer orbit periods are still observable and predictable.

Also I've realized that constellations really do new to move more while still retaining their monthly prominence.. and here I thought I was done..