OMG this!
I would also like a config for the demographic of star types and population layouts.
Like, personally, I think there should be more red stars than yellow stars, and more yellow than blue.
White stars are an exception.
Then, more dwarfs than main-sequence mediums, and more mediums than giants. Also, hyper-giant plox. Takes up whole system, but is nice and fluffy to fly into! (the density is actually very low in these giant puffballs, until you get to the core and the shells that aren't being flung off yet).
Binary stars need to be more common, but it is usually a white dwarf companion. Binary's with 2 main sequence stars could still be uncommon. Binary giants would be really rare.
Leave black holes how they are now, I wont attempt to touch them.
Brown dwarfs!
We need ourselves some brown/purple dwarfs! They are also a remnant like white dwarfs and neutron stars, but they are failed stars, not stars that have died. They give off mainly infrared light, and are a deep dark purplish-brownish, and very dense. And tiny. Like, 2 radius of Jupiter, but 13-25 times the mass.
-Brainblast! They don't show up on the galactic map, you find them when you mouse over a system (like planets do). Most likely to spawn in the outer 3 sectors of a solar system (so on the edge) and would have 0-2 planets around it, with a mean of .25 (so more likely none than one).
Also can be found lounging around in voidspace, especially in galaxy halos.
Spawning probability, uh, low in galactic center, medium in the disk and high in the outskirts/above-below and in the halo. Very low in the space between galaxies (their is a lot of space though!)
1:3 or 1:4 void systems in the "high" probability have the chance to have brown dwarfs, and when a void system is given the flag to spawn in brown dwarfs, it has a chance to spawn between 1-6, with an average of 2.
(remember each dwarf has a chance for planets around it! It is basically a failed solar system, either ejected from the molecular cloud before it finished eating by another larger star, or the cloud wasn't massive enough, or it started forming too late, and a giant started blasting away the rest of the "food" with it's large solar winds. just some background about these guys).
Oh, and a 50% chance to find a belt around the little guys too. Think of them like a 5x5x5 (125 sectors) system, in a system. That's where belt orbits and planet orbits would be. A belt in the sector of the "star" would count as the inner belts of a normal system. 1 sector away you have the middle biomes, and 2 sectors away you have the outer biomes.
Anyways, yeah, chances to find a mini cluster to sustain your mining operations in deepspace, for the kind of players that enjoy being super stealthy (like the minecrafters that like to make a house in a volcano, its like a perfect spot for an evil base!)
Brown dwarfs that share a system with a star (either as a companion or a 'freeloader') wouldn't be as complex as the type found in void systems. Tidal forces and solar radiation pressure has stripped the brown dwarf of its mini solar system a while ago. The ones in orbit around the star (in the outer 3 sectors of the system) have just a 3x3x3 space (27 sectors) and would be just the middle biome (or a mishmash of whatever, still undecided) Maybe the same probability like the void systems, a 1/4~1/3 chance for a system to have a brown dwarf. It probably is much higher in nature, but this is a game, and don't want to swamp it.
Anyways, Biomes.
Cluster Biomes, Galactic Biomes, System Biomes, and Planetary Biomes.
First off, and this can be a long way off in developing, and doesn't matter as much so I will be brief, but galaxy clusters. Basically, usually a monstrously gigantic elliptical in the center of the galactic cluster, and with other galaxies around it. Colliding/merging spirals are more common around the core, and it gets kinda normal the farther out you get.
The timescale of the game means nothing actually moves or happens at the Inter-Galactic scale, it is just how things spawn, and is kinda like eyecandy/cool stuff that might get kids interested in science in real life. And that's a good thing.
Galaxies should also have their own set of biomes, and their should be many different types. Due to the timescale of the game, once again, nothing actually moves/happens, it is just setting conditions to how things spawn/affects things in the galaxy map.
-First, different types of galaxies will affect the biomes. Some might have features that others don't. Eliptical galaxies don't have spiral arms, while spirals will have giant biomes of void in the north/south regions unlike elipiticals which are like giant spheres.
-Second, biomes will govern star density, both in star system to voidspace ratios, and in stars per system ratio. They also can effect the star types and colors, for example, the center of galaxies will have a higher ratio of older stars than the disk or halo will, resulting in 90% of the giants in the galaxy located their, and even having the ability of super/hypergiants spawning in.
-Third, they allow for sub-biomes to form in galactic biomes. Things like the region of space around the supermassive black hole in the galactic center, the "eyewall" (like that of a hurricane) of the disk part adjacent to the bar structure in certain galaxies, and more importantly, large multi-system features like Open Clusters and Globular Clusters, or Giant Molecular Clouds(stellar nurseries). These multi-system features will be discussed further, later.
Galaxies will need to be much larger, maybe 4 times the current volume, and have a way larger size variation. They will no longer be made of solid rows of stars, but have spaces of void sprinkled in. More thought required on composition... :/
Star Systems should have an updated biome list, and be modifiable with configs. And needless to say, will be complex.
The lifetime of a star is too long for the timescale of this game, but in the future orbits might be able to function without too much processing power. But we will ignore the stellar lifecycles of stars, that can be a mod someone does in the future or something.
The dominant type of star will determine the composition of the system.
Binary systems will either be the typical 2 stars orbiting close to one another(like Tatooine), or the more common (but less known for some reason) where a star has a distant partner most likely captured and orbits at a long distance away.
(red circle is where the dwarf star is)
A good example of both of these combine is the next store neighbor Alpha Centauri, a system with a yellow star and a slightly lesser orange star (about a Sun-Pluto separation between the two, but it is an elliptical orbit). Then at about 1/4th a lightyear out (15,000 AU's) is Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf which is the closest star to earth (at this point in its 1/4 million year orbit). A trinary star system at our doorstep!
Anyways, yeah, 50% of all stars should have a companion, whether it be a close companion, or a dwarf (red or brown) lounging at the peripherals.
--
(Radiation and/or Heat Damage: Affects shields first, then armor, then hull. Gravity Stress Damage goes straight to hull, with a damage reduction based on amount of armor left. Gravity damage scales the closer you get to the source)
Back to biomes, the damage zone is first. (smallest to largest in radius, not mass)
-Neutron Stars: (small, asteroid sized)
Super-dense, cannot touch! Radiation damage upon entry of sector. Gravity damage starts scaling at 1km above "surface", lethal before you reach surface.
-Pulsars: (small, asteroid sized)
Super-dense, cannot touch! Radiation damage upon entry of the sector. Sweeping Beams deal high damage on polar rotation axis throughout entire system, and massive damage in the star sector. Gravity damage starts scaling 1km above "surface", lethal before you reach surface.
-White Dwarfs: (small, planet core size)
Super-dense, cannot touch! Radiation damage starts 500m above "surface", gravity damage starts scaling at 400m, lethal before you reach surface. However, this is subject to scaling, the smaller the dwarf, the higher the values (inverse relation). The more massive a white dwarf, the more contracted and denser it becomes.
-Black Hole: (small, planet core size)
Super-dense, cannot touch!
-Brown Dwarfs: (small, gas giant size) Radiation damage starts at the surface/outer shell,
-Red Dwarfs: (small, larger than gas giants)
-Orange ZAMS: (medium, almost the size of a sector)
-Yellow ZAMS: (medium, about the size of a sector)
-G̶r̶e̶e̶n̶ White ZAMS: (medium, about the size of a sector)
-Blue ZAMS: (medium, 3-5R,)
-Blue Giants: (medium, 5-10R,
-Yellow and White Giants: (30ishR?, a pulsing variable star)
-Blue Supergiants: (30-80R
-Red Giants: (Large, 20-100R)
-Yellow and White Supergiants:
-Blue Hypergiants:
-Yellow and White Hypergiants:
-Red Supergiants: (500-1300R)
-Red Hypergiants: (1000R+)
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SUPERMASSIVEBLACKHOLE
Now we have the hot inner zones. This refers to the zone that ends a little before venus in our own Solar System, and is the area where comets are thoroughly cooked. (tastes like chicken!)
-Planet types:
-Barren (moon-like)
-Scorched (mercury-like)
-Lava Planet (land o'lakes o'lava)
-Chthonian planet (Gas giant remnant that has had it's atmosphere blasted away)
-Hot Jupiter (Gas Giant that migrated inwards)
-Hot Neptune (Ice Giant that migrated inwards)
-Belt compositions:
-very hot asteroids, with some lava in the interior. No asteroids with volatiles.
The temperate (or Goldilocks) zone, smack dab between the Dewpoint Line and the Frost Line, has the place where the cool people hang out: us!
-Planet types:
-Barren (moon like)
-Desert Planet (like the ones currently in game)
-Greenhouse Planet (Venus anyone?)
-Oceanic Planet (Ice planet that was thrown inwards)
-Earth Analog (Terrestrial planet with oceans, deserts, forests, tundra, icecaps, and grasslands)
-Dusty Planet (filled with sand/dust and ices, desert planet with no life)
-(subtypes include Pluto and Mars, and would vary spectacularly in color)
-Super Earths (massive rocky planets with a large atmosphere akin to a proto gas giant)
-Belt compositions
-Few/little asteroids with lava. Asteroids would have volatiles (ices and others) under the surface of dust and rock. Porous asteroids, centaurs (asteroids with tails of comets), carbon asteroids and iron asteroids exist, but silica and mafic being the most common types.
Frost Line and beyond
-Planet types
-Barren
-Desert
-Greenhouse
-Dusty
-Ice
-Carbon
-Jupiter (gas giants)
-Neptune (ice giants)
-Belt compositions
-Sparse asteroids, but a thick belt. Asteroids have lots of ices.
Kuiper Belt
-Planet types
-Barren
-Dusty
-Ice
-Carbon
-Neptune
-Belt compositions
-Sparse asteroids, but a thick belt. Asteroids have lots of ices.
Wow, I have wrote a lot... maybe I should just go to the suggestion forums and finish this there...