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Post by srbrant on Feb 6, 2018 4:50:03 GMT
I'm in a real bind when it comes to finding the right place for story to take place in. I want it to be distant, but still fairly well charted. Which lead me to choose the Rosette Nebula as the setting.
But that comes with two brain-racking problems: One, the nebula (or hopefully at least NGC 2244) is filled with O-type stars, which not only means no planets (I think) and perhaps most importantly, several metric fucktons of radiation. The flesh-melting, kidney-losing kind. Impossible for any sort of light to live there.
Two, and this is the most vexing, I have no idea if the maps of star clusters I'm seeing are from a "top-down", distance-wise perspective or if they are simply from an observer's perspective. And if it is the latter, then how the hell do I determine which star is where and how far from another it is?
Help me out here guys, I'm in a real pickle here.
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Post by matterbeam on Feb 7, 2018 12:23:39 GMT
I'm in a real bind when it comes to finding the right place for story to take place in. I want it to be distant, but still fairly well charted. Which lead me to choose the Rosette Nebula as the setting. But that comes with two brain-racking problems: One, the nebula (or hopefully at least NGC 2244) is filled with O-type stars, which not only means no planets (I think) and perhaps most importantly, several metric fucktons of radiation. The flesh-melting, kidney-losing kind. Impossible for any sort of light to live there. Two, and this is the most vexing, I have no idea if the maps of star clusters I'm seeing are from a "top-down", distance-wise perspective or if they are simply from an observer's perspective. And if it is the latter, then how the hell do I determine which star is where and how far from another it is? Help me out here guys, I'm in a real pickle here. In these sorts of situations, a game like Elite:Dangerous can really help. |
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Post by srbrant on Feb 7, 2018 21:52:52 GMT
I'm in a real bind when it comes to finding the right place for story to take place in. I want it to be distant, but still fairly well charted. Which lead me to choose the Rosette Nebula as the setting. But that comes with two brain-racking problems: One, the nebula (or hopefully at least NGC 2244) is filled with O-type stars, which not only means no planets (I think) and perhaps most importantly, several metric fucktons of radiation. The flesh-melting, kidney-losing kind. Impossible for any sort of light to live there. Two, and this is the most vexing, I have no idea if the maps of star clusters I'm seeing are from a "top-down", distance-wise perspective or if they are simply from an observer's perspective. And if it is the latter, then how the hell do I determine which star is where and how far from another it is? Help me out here guys, I'm in a real pickle here. In these sorts of situations, a game like Elite:Dangerous can really help. What do you mean? |
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Post by Brackish on Feb 8, 2018 0:33:37 GMT
If you happen to have already bought it already  . Nothing like a full scale simulation of the Milky Way to solve all your star mapping problems! If you are looking for the closest approximation to what we know of our galaxy, without access to a professional cosmologist's database and (probably difficult to use) tools, Elite: Dangerous is probably your game. If you can handle procedurally generated stars whose approximation to reality is less than sure, then I suggest Space Engine. It's programmed by a Russian guy, he does a bang up job! Also you can customize it to your liking, so you can get it to produce the setting for you, and tweak it to your hearts content! Note that I say "approximation to reality is less than sure," but it's probably pretty good within a certain range of our Solar system. I really don't know what factors he takes into account to generate stars. He does use real star catalogs too, so there's that. |
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Post by srbrant on Feb 8, 2018 3:23:46 GMT
If you happen to have already bought it already . Nothing like a full scale simulation of the Milky Way to solve all your star mapping problems! If you are looking for the closest approximation to what we know of our galaxy, without access to a professional cosmologist's database and (probably difficult to use) tools, Elite: Dangerous is probably your game. If you can handle procedurally generated stars whose approximation to reality is less than sure, then I suggest Space Engine. It's programmed by a Russian guy, he does a bang up job! Also you can customize it to your liking, so you can get it to produce the setting for you, and tweak it to your hearts content! Note that I say "approximation to reality is less than sure," but it's probably pretty good within a certain range of our Solar system. I really don't know what factors he takes into account to generate stars. He does use real star catalogs too, so there's that. Looking at the E:D Galaxy Map online. Doesn't look like it offers a lot of help. Also, the Space Engine is only for PC - I have a Mac. Sure you guys don't know of a top-down map of any of the star clusters in the Rosette Nebula? |
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Post by srbrant on Feb 8, 2018 4:28:05 GMT
Any way I can cheat a bit and create new stars within a star cluster like, say NGC 2252 or a bit beyond in a "safe zone" of the nebula away from killer radiation?
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Post by thorneel on Feb 15, 2018 23:14:35 GMT
srbrantspaceengine.org is a free alternative to E:D It is essentially a space exploration simulator, with procedurally generated stuff for what hasn't been mapped. And by space I mean the entire Universe. The base version may not come with all the maps already in for size (and dev time) reasons, but you can apparently add your own, and some third-party maps are probably on their forum.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 16, 2018 11:05:01 GMT
Space Engine looks absolutely spectacular and allows toggling procedurally generated stuff with decent degree of granularity, so I can't recommend it enough for space mapping needs. It does have some screw ups in ported catalogue data, but they are relatively far in between.
E:D is a bit of a sore spot for me, ever since the announcement of it being always online and dropping strictly Newtonian flight physics for some nebulous thing they call "fun".
Now, if I shared this definition of "fun", I wouldn't be posting on this forum, would I?
OTOH now ancient sequels to the original Elite - Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier: First Encounters were really impressive even over a decade afterwards (fully Newtonian albeit approximated to two bodies and without much respect for Tsiolkovsky, full scale planetary systems, curvilinear 3D vector graphics with extreme level of detail, sourced coloured lighting and unlimited rendering distance within system, procedurally generated galaxy, could run on 286/Amiga/Atari and fit on a single floppy).
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Post by Brackish on Feb 19, 2018 17:45:42 GMT
Looking at the E:D Galaxy Map online. Doesn't look like it offers a lot of help. Also, the Space Engine is only for PC - I have a Mac. Sure you guys don't know of a top-down map of any of the star clusters in the Rosette Nebula? Ah, yes. The conundrum of Mac users, sometimes left even further behind Linux users  Elite: Dangerous vanilla (non-Horizons) runs on Mac, with full access to the galaxy map. It costs money though, so if you can't work out getting Space Engine running somehow (some variation of Wine?) that's probably your best bet. Also if you actually want to check out the system details and possible setting locations, you'll be faced with a grind and time-sink. Space Engine allows you to add, remove, tweak, and completely redesign planets, stars, and systems to your liking, so finding a usable PC or getting it running on Wine may be worth it anyways. I don't know if Universe Sandbox has any potential for what you need. I've never dug into it, but it apparently runs on Mac. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 19, 2018 17:58:17 GMT
I could get SE to run on Wine on my laptop, albeit with some texturing problems.
Windows PC is a safer bet, but since it's free, there is no harm in trying.
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. Nothing like a full scale simulation of the Milky Way to solve all your star mapping problems!
