The Sky is Failing!

Beautiful sky?
These Events Cannot Be Displayed.

1: All major planetary alignments occur at Noon.. and assuming the sky is clear.. this is what they look like.


Not very beautiful. This is the best you're ever going to see of an approaching alignment.

A. Object fade out and planetary phases during the day make seeing planets approaching alignment that much harder if not nearly impossible.

B. Night time duration is only 20 minutes.. and the extended dawn and dusk cuts into that even further on either end of night time reducing the visible night sky to about 15 minutes.

B2: Clouds obscures the sky entirely.

A & B essentially are factors which, while not a real issue in of themselves, but ever increasingly limits what can be observed during the night time.

222 - Sun Timed Out

Every day at noon the sun takes a lunch break for about 5 minutes.

Here we see a much slower Orange passing the sun at midday.. only to later be passed by the sun once it starts moving again.

Tabula Rasa!

1: The sky resets every year. What this means is that all events will always happen at the same time, every time. There is no variation and planetary orbits do not continue on into the following year. So of course there are no new alignments from year to year.

2: Alignment durations are very short depending upon how flexible Portalarium wants to be with them, but these alignments will always be at the same time, so if you can't play during these times you're simply out of luck.. and you always will be. You'll never be able to witness these events and you'll never be able to take direct advantage of whatever in-game effect the events are supposed to have.

404 - Event Not Found!

1: There are only 4 "major" planetary alignments. Period. While 2 planet alignments are abundant to the point of having little or no meaning. The 4 major alignments are..

Green + Red + Orange: Aug 19
Yellow + Green + Orange: Nov 1
Blue + Green + Orange: Dec 6
Red + Yellow + Orange: Dec 24

Of these, only one, Dec 24 has any significance for lore.. Valor + Compassion = Sacrifice.

2: Are prime numbers ideal for orbital durations?

The planetary orbits use prime numbers for how long their orbits take. This has the effect of ensuring alignments are relatively rare.. Combined with planetary tabula rasa there will only ever be the 4 alignments.

3: The Problem with Purple.
The purple planet is unique in it's 2 day orbit. 1 day in the sky, 1 day behind NB. Because it's a 2 day orbit the only way to get it to appear in the sky at night is if its orbit is 'offset' from the other planets. Otherwise it's 1 day period in the sky would be during the day when we couldn't see it at all.

What this means for events is that Purple can never participate in major alignments because all the other planets align during the day when Purple is passing behind New Britannia.

Sky Out of Order

1: Ok check this out.. here are the constellations..



The left half is the 'order' group.. the right is the 'chaos' group. Green arrows represent the direction they travel through the sky.. as such the blue arrows represent the order they appear in the sky.

So one last time.. traditional order of planets.. which is also the order they are in SotA.

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

Order of appearance of constellations (this time starting with the chaos group first)..

Ethical Hedonism, Bell, Candle, Book, Crook, Ankh, Chalice, Tear, Scales, Sword, Heart, Hand

2: Orbit Durations.. and these ARE accurate and confirmed.. my final numbers.

7, 19, 17, 13, 11, 3, 2, 29, 23

Note that these times, speaking strictly in terms of numbers.. are similarly out of order as the constellation's appearance in the sky.

Edited for various typos & formatting.

 

Did I miss anything? Well I also wanted to add this little number..



This is a simulation with my final.. and very much confirmed.. accurate numbers.. This time I have included a date calendar.. also checked and double checked and.. well it's spot on this time.. I guarantee it..

You will notice I did not include the constellations this time.. the reason being that none of the constellations actually participate in any of the alignments.

I would also like to suggest.. that if orbit durations are reordered.. (and I think they should be).. that the lower numbers of 2, and 3 be removed.. (nothing should be faster than Daedelus and I like it's 7 day orbit).. and the final two numbers be 31 and 37.. assuming we're following prime numbers..

Now I await for any changes to correct these issues..

 

Well done, Bowen.

 

Thanks.. I THINK I covered everything this time.. Leaving out most of my suggestions as I've posted them or referred to them a few times already.. but I wanted to make one final post on this as there was new data.

 

Doh! I did kind of forget to mention solar eclipses involving Daedelus.. it's not significant but suffers the same look as smaller eclipses where Daedelus is just faded out and nothing else.. technically it's a partial eclipse but still covers most of the sun yet the sky doesn't dim or anything.

 

Holy sh** Bowen!
Nice work. And by that am extremely good feedback.

 

Bowen, I wouldn't spend too much time on this. I think the sky is an old screensaver that RG had in his files from ages ago. It is being used as a placeholder until the stretch goal telescope gets funded.

 

You tell me this NOW?

Edit: Hey that might actually be a cool idea.. SotA Astronomy screen saver!

 

Maybe they will sell special solar gazing goggles like are used in watching an eclipse?

 

We'd have to actually need them first. Would be nice to have a better lighting effect when looking at the sun.. but then.. we wouldn't be able to see alignments at all if they did that. Least not without adjusting all the orbits so alignments happened at night when they would actually be cool to watch.

 

Ok @Chris, this is everything I've observed and confirmed (in some cases many times over).. You'll find the repeating dates all planets hit their apex every year in the Astronomy 401 thread.

 

Bowen you are truly amazing! That is just incredible work and I curtsey deeply to you in respect sir.

 

Thank you you're very kind. Now it just remains to be seen what the devs do with the feedback.

I did have a brief opportunity to talk to Chris about it tonight and at least we know for sure that the ever repeating sky is a bug. Though one yet to be confirmed on their side. The bad news is the arrange of orbit durations isn't likely to change. Richard seems happy as they are.. fortunately, it's not a major issue.

The biggest issues for me is really the visibility of alignments. They really do need to happen at night.

 

I would agree, it would be nice to see the alignments at a visible time. You need to hold some star gazing nights in game

 

I already do though perhaps it's the time but my only regular is one of the DJs who comes to hang out during his set. Friday nights, 7:30 CST.. should be on the calendars and posted in the email updates.

 

Ah okay, well I can come for about an hour of that. I have a regular group in another game that runs Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

 

I will try to make a post about it in the events forum by Friday.

 

You took the words right out of my mouth!

 

Thank you, Bowen, for jumping into the event this evening.

 

ha ha.