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Problems with the Sky

Discussion in 'Release 24 Feedback' started by Bowen Bloodgood, Dec 5, 2015.

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  1. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    @Chris @DarkStarr @RichardGarriott

    Now it is my feeling that I should post this as a bug.. or series of bugs perhaps as I see any 'unwanted behavior' as a bug. And in that regard the sky is buggy even though the actual system may be working fine. The numbers that system is using however.. is not. There are 3 issues I want to draw your attention to..

    1: The Sun.
    Now I already posted in the bug area about how Daedelus shouldn't fade from view during dawn and dusk so I won't get into that. What I will get into here is the fact the sun actually stops for several minutes at the beginning of Midday. The length of time it stops I'm not sure I can confirm but I have a series of screenshots that prove it does indeed stop..

    <insert screen shot here.. will do in a little bit>

    2: Planetary orbital speeds.
    This is easily the biggest issue of the 3 in terms of bugginess. A couple of observations first. I spent an 11 hour session doing nothing but looking at the sky and I have been able to confirm a few things.

    All planets (yellow is as of yet unconfirmed but seems reasonable) pass true north at either the top or bottom of the hour. Meaning not only is this predictable behavior.. but that their respective orbital speeds are indeed whole numbers.

    Now.. astronomical alignment occurs but once in 800 years.. (Brion - Ultima VII).. meaning all orbital times must go evenly into 800. You guys and I both know that SotA's solar system is Ultima's solar system. So don't deny it.. that means Ultima data is valid here. Even the order of the planets is the same which I have been able to confirm in my 11 hours plus many screenshots within reason.

    The orbital speeds which are whole numbers and go evenly into 800 are (in hours).. 2, 4, 8, 10, 16, 20, 25 and 32.. for the 8 planets and should be in that order from nearest to farthest. Yet they are not.

    The data I was able to collect is close enough for me to match each of those numbers with a planet.. though I admit more confirmation would be nice.. never the less there are serious issues that can be proven here. Firstly, I have confirmed the speeds of Orange and Purple.. the 4th and 5th planets out, to be 3 hours and 2 hours respectively. 3 doesn't even go into 800..

    The actual orbital times of the current sky, using the numbers above actually goes something like this..

    16, 20, 10, 8, 3, 2, 25, 32 instead of..
    2, 4, 8, 10, 16, 20, 25, 32

    I can at least confirm the order of the planets does seem correct.. which makes the current orbital times seem even stranger as faster planets pass behind slower ones.

    3: Constellation orbital paths.. specifically the Chaos grouping.
    This issue concerns possible astronomical events related to the black & white planets. The orbital paths of the southern.. or chaos grouping of constellations only intersects the orbital paths of planets at the horizons where any possible event cannot be witnessed. Or at least the respective bodies do not come close enough to each other in the sky to really make a connection. One would normally expect white and black to actually cross the Ankh and the Crook respectively to consider an event to take place and what good is it to players if we can't see it?
     
  2. StrangerDiamond

    StrangerDiamond Avatar

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    It's good to have you here Bowen... I would have probably never noticed those details exept the midday bug, but at the same time I really care that its done well and it would probably affect my subconscious because of who I am...

    A purported obsolete Ultima data... :(
     
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  3. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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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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  4. StrangerDiamond

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  5. Solstar

    Solstar Avatar

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    I'm curious why you think 3 hours is not a valid revolution period. Just because of some Ultima info and because it doesn't make easy alignments?

    Also consider the possibility that our planet is also rotating slightly. I wish I had the time to watch the sky...
     
  6. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    also, the sun and moonLIGHT are not tied to the positions of the sun and the moon. with the sun it's not far off enough to matter, but the moonlight matches the old sky: rising at dusk and setting at dawn. worse, when it rises it's the color of sunlight, so you have bright golden light coming from the east just after sunset.

    have bugged this mutiple times and not gotten a "bug entered."
     
  7. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    Because replicating the Ultima solar system was apparently the plan and a 3 hour orbit just doen't fit it.
     
  8. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    It's always annoyed me that the sun rises during "Late Night".

    And a dev could get to say "'Scuse me while I retouch the sky!"
     
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  9. Daxxe Diggler

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    I'm not very knowledgeable in astronomy, so please let me know if I'm wrong here... but could the size of the planets affect their orbit speed?

    I was thinking that smaller planets might have less drag and therefore orbit faster than larger planets.

    If that is true, then it would be OK for a faster orbiting planet to pass behind a slower/larger one.
     
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  10. Traveller13

    Traveller13 Bug Hunter

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    "'Scuse me while I fix the sky." fits better. I was thinking the same thing reading the title and first post of the thread.
     
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  11. Phiedrus Oliva

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    Reality is that the speed of a planet in circular orbit only depends on the distance to the sun, but not the size, provided that the sun is much (and I mean much) bigger than the planets.
    So the nearer planets go faster than the outer ones.
    There is no drag in the void space.
    Better not try to replicate reality here... It would not be easy to fit.
     
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  12. Daxxe Diggler

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    Ok, thanks for the info. I thought it was a longshot, but worth asking anyway.
     
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  13. Arkah EMPstrike

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    Any reference you have for identifyign the constellatiosn would be useful to us. Do the constellations move? Is the planet we are on orbiting? stuff like that. Outside of takign small measurments visually on screen with a hand-labeled scrap of strait paper over the course of a few minuites is the only way i can help figure this stuff out. Hard to test soemthing that takes hours or days of exclusive focus to measure >.<
     
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  14. Arkah EMPstrike

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    I noticed that the sky sphere , beign a physical asset rather than some kind of static background, moves ALOT from palce to place, if you enter a scene, the celestial bodies may look like they are in a different place than they are when u exit to novia. For instance entering serenite right now i can look strait up and see the moon and that red planet, when i leave town, it appears alot clsoer to the western horizon, because your physical position within the sphere has changed
     
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  15. Bowen Bloodgood

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    There have been two systems for the sky and not all scenes have been converted to the new sky yet. So some older scenes may not have been updated.
     
  16. Bowen Bloodgood

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    11 out of the 14 constellations are based directly on Ultima lore. They are the common symbols used for the virtues and related artifacts. Yes they do move.. they are collected into 2 groups of 7 constellations each. 6 of the constellations are in a straight line along their orbit with an orbital speed of 336 hours.. or 1 full orbit per New Britannia year (real 2 weeks). We're using a geocentric system.. so in terms of both lore and game mechanics.. everything orbits New Britannia.

    All planets, including Daedelus plus the sun follow the same path across the sky as does one of the two groups of constellations.

    Well.. read up here.. :) NB Astronomy 101 *SPOILERS*
     
  17. Katrina Bekers

    Katrina Bekers Localization Team

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    IIRC, the timeline between Ultima and SotA is the same, and the SotA cataclism (i.e. "400 years ago") is actually an important date (like UO Earth launch or something).

    Now I'm not finding the references, but in short the SotA timeline can be tracked back to Ultima one.

    U7 is 1992. Adding 33 years yields 2025. I hope Episode 1 will be released by then! :p
     
  18. Arkah EMPstrike

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    Much appreciated bowen :)
     
  19. StrangerDiamond

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    Ultima online is what ? curious... :p
     
  20. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Think it was just an example of an important date.
     
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