Once every 80 years, as Alpha Centauri B reaches perihelion (its closest
approach to Alpha Centauri A), it generates enough heat to increase Planet’s
average temperature by 0.3° C.
#PERIHELION
#xs 440
#caption Chief Planetologist
Hercules (Alpha Centauri B) is approaching perihelion!
For the next 20 years, we expect native life activity to
increase dramatically.
#PERIHELIONENDS
#xs 440
#caption Chief Planetologist
Hercules has receded from perihelion. Native life activity
should return to normal levels.
There is a plugin for installer I'm using that lets you create small file with different changes between exe versions. So, idea was that for future releases of their patches could be rolled in as component of unofficial patch installer. That way you'd have option to apply AI or other changes forked from my bug fixes. It would be up to them if they want to do this.
base exchange fix is wrong f.i.
There is quite a nice buglist on Apolyton: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7650-Official-SMACX-v2-bug-list-READ-ONLY-PLEASE (http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7650-Official-SMACX-v2-bug-list-READ-ONLY-PLEASE)!
It's creakingly old but there was at least one text file only bug on there that was unfixed till now. Maybe we need to coalesce around the bug fixes and then divide into fact finding groups on the AI and option expanding improvements.
I'm currently working on making the option-expanding stuff not need a hex editor to use with old maps; I'm making progress but it'll still be a while.
There is quite a nice buglist on Apolyton: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7650-Official-SMACX-v2-bug-list-READ-ONLY-PLEASE (http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/7650-Official-SMACX-v2-bug-list-READ-ONLY-PLEASE)!
It's creakingly old but there was at least one text file only bug on there that was unfixed till now. Maybe we need to coalesce around the bug fixes and then divide into fact finding groups on the AI and option expanding improvements.
We could wiki a current list of bugs but it needs experienced game players to vet them.
Er, I guess my phone posted my incomplete reply before I gave up trying to type out response.
@Yitzi: What I meant was, you use kyrub's and kyrub's is based off of mine. Right now, I have about double the patches currently in v1.0 fixing various things. But I haven't had a chance to have a look at what you've done so I don't really know if we've crossed code wise. I just know kyrub's was outside areas since I never touched AI. I might be able to make it easier to apply my patches but personally, I'll always want bug fixes only for myself.
Back on topic, I was thinking about the random bit earlier today and thought out a solution. Basically, what I would do is split the variable for storing the starting date in half. Currently, it's a DWORD which is really unnecessary so making it a WORD you wouldn't lose anything. This would mean I'd have to go through 5-6 instances where it's called and modify how data is accessed. Once it's been split, I now have two bytes I can work with. One for creating a random perihelion start date from 2151 to 2160 (0-9) and another I can use at some future date.
Ah nice! I didn't actually look at code just thinking it out. I'm surprised nothing breaks with very high start dates.
"Real" year by what measurement? How much time dilation would there be between a terran clock and Unity's?
"Real" year by what measurement? How much time dilation would there be between a terran clock and Unity's?
Earth years. Which is, incidently, the same as Mission Years as I recall. I thought the factions kept using the Earth calendar because Planet's seasons were almost indistinguistable due to the lower axial tilt of the planet. At least, I recall that it was mentioned like this in one of the interludes files (or perhaps the planets file).
This is my last foray into this because I’m clearly treading water with rapidly deflating water-wings, but I thought Planet was orbiting the combined centre of mass of Alpha A and B so perihelion would depend on Planet’s own orbit and where that put it closest to Alpha B? I’m now going to go and lie down.
Planetary constants Earth Planet/ Ratio
Chiron
Mass kg 5.98E+24 1.10E+25 1.84
Equat. radius m 6.38E+06 7.54E+06 1.18
Dist. from star m 1.50E+11 1.60E+11 1.07
Axial tilt degrees 23.45 2.00 0.09
Surface area m2 5.10E+14 7.18E+14 1.41
Standard gravity m s-2 9.81 12.85 1.31
Escape velocity m s-1 11184 13947 1.25
Density kg m-3 5519 6150 1.11
Size of sun degrees 0.27 0.27 1.02
Year our days 365.3 388.6 1.06
Year local days 365.3 532.0 1.46
Day hours 24.00 17.53 0.73
Mountain height m 10626 8112 0.76
Horizon distance m 5051 5493 1.09
Ocean tide (sun) m 0.12 0.12 0.94
Ocean tide (moon 1) m 0.27 0.18 0.67
Ocean tide (moon 2) m 0.11
Ocean tide (both) m 0.39 0.41 1.05"Real" year by what measurement? How much time dilation would there be between a terran clock and Unity's?
Earth years. Which is, incidently, the same as Mission Years as I recall. I thought the factions kept using the Earth calendar because Planet's seasons were almost indistinguistable due to the lower axial tilt of the planet. At least, I recall that it was mentioned like this in one of the interludes files (or perhaps the planets file).
It seems to me you are missing what I meant by time dilation. Unity may use the same time measurement as Earth, but due to time dilation, less time will pass on the Unity clock than on Earth. Therefore you probably can't put the "real perihee" year in the game.
There are too many unknowns to know how much the time difference will be. Unity is a slowship, having no FTL drive, but how close can its fusion drive approach lightspeed? How long does it take to reach maximum velocity, and how long is its travel time to Alpha Centauri?
For gameplay purposes, it is reasonable to have Unity arrive just after one perihelion period, if you want to be "realistic" and have the first perihelion event happen 60 years into the game.
As for gameplay reasons. Again, it is totally reasonable to have Planet not act on upstart colonists since they're not that many in number, and don't cause much ecodamage at that point, so no noticable event (roughly MY 2105-2125) after arrival wouldn't harm. Another issue is that I seem to recall the first perihelion event depends on your difficulty level. The higher the difficulty level, the earlier the event. Perhaps that should be checked as well.
I should stay out of this given my obvious astronomical numtiness but it’s an itch that won’t quit.
If the perihelion is the point in time when Alphas A and B are at their closest, then shouldn’t that be in the middle of the game’s 20 year period of perihelion?