Problems with the Sky

Ok there is one more thing I'm noticing here.. and technically this probably doesn't matter but I bring it up because it's an inconsistency.. That is the Crook and Ankh constellations appear to be out of order with the rest.

To explain.

The constellations representing the virtues appear in this order from right to left..

Hand, Heart, Sword, Scales, Tear, Chalice | Crook, Ankh.

The planet order from nearest to farthest is..

Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Orange, Purple, White, Black.

Note that their respective orders match up until you get to last two. Of course, this only really matters IF the intention was for the constellations to follow the same order as the planets and at the moment has no bearing on anything apart from consistency.. but I thought I should point it out in case the devs want to 'fix' this detail as well.. which my opinion is they probably should. Just because it's one of those little cool details to be discovered.. It kind of falls a little flat if they're "out of order".

 

Here's another thought related to what I just posted..

IF the intention was for the order of planets and constellations to match in the order of the constellation's appearance in the sky.. then it is the first 6 constellations that are reversed. As that grouping appears in order from left to right and this brings into the question whether or not both groups of constellations are reversed (with respect to their intended order)

Planets According to Virtue are in this order.

Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, Humility.

The order of appearance of constellations in the sky, according to virtue are thus..

Honor, Sacrifice, Justice, Valor, Compassion, Honesty | Ethical Hedonism, Courage, Love, Truth, Humility, Spirituality

Noting here that while the first group (North/Virtue) appears from right to left.. the second (South/Chaos) appears from left to right. (For those trying to follow along ) Even the 3 principles are reversed in this case.

And so I bring up the question as to which order is intended? If any.

If the order of both groups were reversed.. they would appear in the sky in this order.. starting with the north/virtue grouping.

Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, Humility, Truth, Love, Courage, Ethical Hedonism.

Given how that matches up perfectly with the planetary order I can only assume this was the original intent.

And while I'm at it.. I still think 'Ethical Hedonism' should be Infinity instead.. someone might just need to change a few hat textures..

Edit: Upon further reflection (while engaged in a mental uber facepalm).. what actually happened was likely not that the constellation groups were built in the wrong order.. but the groupings themselves may have been reversed.. for if the virtue group were in the south.. and chaos group in the north.. the constellations would appear in the right order.

Unfortunately, this would lead to the problem of 6 out of the 8 planets not being able to cross their respective constellations as is currently the problem with the Crook and Ankh.

Edit: Edit: Reversing the orbital directions might also work. That also could have been the error rather than reversing the groupings? Constellations orbiting the wrong direction?

 

I think maybe the shardfall perhaps affected a little more than the people of new britannia ?

 

Maybe they wanted one planet to only align every 2400 rather than 800? And closer planets can orbit more slowly than outer ones if they are lighter I think..

 

Hmm, I thought the planet's size might be the reason, but hadn't thought of weight/mass as a factor in a planet's orbital speed. Although, after seeing all of Bowen's theories above, maybe it's just design error that faster planets are behind slower ones?

 

It's less a matter of size or mass and more a matter of distance. Planets that are farther out have that much farther to travel in their orbits. Show me one solar system anywhere where a planet that's way out there completes an orbit faster than one that's close to its sun. It's just common sense guys.

 

That isn't the only factors, however. Take a look at the Moons of Jupiter, for example. Lysithea (moon 12) has a longer orbital period than Elara (moon 13), partially due to its inclination and eccentricity. Other moons orbit nearly in the same amount of time despite their different orbits due to similar things.

The issue with the New Brtiannian sky is that they all have the exact same orbital path, which means it is VERY easy to see how odd the are, as their differences cannot be anything OTHER than distance. Compare to Ultima V, where they cannot all be in the same orbit (and, in fact, their position in the sky is identical to the position of the respective town on the map).

 

It's here where we complain about "constellations" behaving like regular satellites, and having nothing of proper grouping of stars?

Can you imagine the amount of energy (and the speed!) in moving cluster(s) of stars in a tight pattern around a planet in a matter of hours?

 

I don't recall the planetary positions being relative to the towns themselves.. only some kind of mystical connection that was left unexplained but yes the in-game positioning is odd. I would consider it an anomaly though more than anything. Does anyone know if the UV manual has artwork of the solar system? I seem to recall it did but I can't find it.

To be more precise, all the planets orbit on the same plane with an exact circular orbit. (Just for those following along)..

Edit: Just confirmed the manuals don't have any artwork for the solar system. Was worth a look.

 

And something else I'd like to know.. Where is the Hammer of Tulur? (Now I'm just being a pill)

 

Just checked. It has not. Just a little more than a page of text, with the list of planets and working of moongates.

 

Thanks for looking. I've actually got most of the manuals but they're in old windows help format which Win7 doesn't support.. I only JUST found out what to download to get them working again.

 

so new britannia is the center of the galaxy ? or is it some kind of easter egg placeholder ?

 

I think that may be beyond the scope of existing lore.

 

I didn't peek into it on purpose like many other things I kind of avoid unless they catch my attention, to get the most punch out of episodic story mode. But I sure expect a fully working astronomical system tied in with the lore and with effects on gameplay and puzzles.

I hope you're not saying I've got high hopes ? Richard is a mathematician who went to space and all, I've got such an idyllic vision of it all, even after all we went through.

 

Most of what needs fixing really just comes down to what Richard really intends and just making sure everything has the right data. Orbit times for example is just a number they need to change to set proper speeds.

 

I just recalled one more major issue.. and yes it's kind of a big one. I just wasn't thinking about it before but planetary alignments.. particularly the big ones of 4 or more.. are not just common but quite frequent. In fact, a 7 planet alignment occurs 3 or 4 times every year! So why hasn't anyone really noticed them before? It's quite simple really.. they all occur at noon when all you can really see is a vague shadow of the eclipse during about a 5-7 minute window.. and it's only that long because the sun stops for 5 minutes at noon.

Being during the day you can't see the planet's approach or really pass each other making that short eclipse all you'll ever be able to see. And THAT is assuming there's no cloud cover.

In short, ALL planetary orbits need to be offset by 30 minutes so that major alignments happen at midnight when they can be properly witnessed.

 

What the what? 11 hours?! Just looking at the sky?

 

So I'm spending another evening staring at the sky and I feel I need to revise my statements just a bit as they pertain to orbital speeds.

While I still haven't confirmed exact numbers for all orbits one pattern seems interesting.. that if the intention was for orbit durations from fastest to slowest match with orbital distance.. then orbital durations suffer from the same problem as the order of appearance of constellations in the sky. That is.. the first 6 planet's orbital durations are reversed.. and the 7th and 8th are reversed in relation to each other as well.

Also if the intention is for astronomical alignment to be CLOSE to 800.. say 792.. then my revised numbers look a little something like this.

7 (Daedelus), 18, 16?, 12? 11, 3, 2, 24, 22..

When they SHOULD be.. (and Daedelus being an exception to the order)..

7, 2, 3, 9 11, 12, 18, 22, 24.

The point being the order.. again suffering the same reversed pattern as the constellations.

 

Yup! Pretty much!