Improvements in the Next Update

[Gregory]

Here are some things that should be improved in the next update, if you guys run US2 and want to see this.

1. Make Planetary atmospheres shorter.
The atmospheres of Venus, Earth, Mars and other random planets with atmospheres are too thick in height, by a factor of 10.
In other programs like Celestia, the atmospheres are only 10/10th of their height used in US2, and if you look at real life photos of planets from space, such as Earth, you'll see that the atmospheres are much shorter.

2. Improve the Textures.
The worlds such as Earth, and the Gas Giants, along with its moons have either poor textures or random textures, they need to be improved
Earth's oceans look too bright and there aren't enough clouds, yet Venus's cloud layer looks fake, and uses Earth's cloud layer on it.

3. Add Oblateness for the Planets.
The planets rotate, and because of the rotational force, they get fatter at the equator and squished at the poles.
Mercury and Venus are fine, as their oblateness is 0, but Earth and the others need that.
Earth has an oblateness of 0.0033528 (0.33528%), The Moon has an oblateness of 0.0012 (0.12%), Mars has an oblateness of 0.006 (0.6%), Ceres has an oblateness of 0.068 (6.8%), Jupiter has an oblateness of 0.06487 (6.487%), Saturn has an oblateness of 0.0979 (0.979%), Uranus has an oblateness of 0.0229 (2.29%), and Neptune has and oblateness of 0.01711 (1.711%), yet Quaoar has an oblateness of 0.12 (12%).
Random planets and/or moons should have different oblateness values depending on the material, gravity and especially rotation.
This isn't even on US2 yet and it would be great to have it work.

4. Make Haumea distorted in dimensions.
Haumea is a scalene body, with a semi axes that's highly distorted, the x axis should be 980, the y axis should be 759, and the y axis should be 498, this is the radial semi axes, and it should be done in the next update.

5. Add tidal forces.
When something, depending on the density and what it's made of gets too close to something with more gravity, then tidal forces should distort it and even rip it apart, again like earlier, it depends on what it's made of as well as it's density.
Black Holes should distort stars when they get too close, and even eat them up and create an accretion disk orbiting the Black Hole.

6. Add realistic Death Stars and other ships.
There are no models of any of the Death Stars in Star Wars, The first, second and third haven't been made in this program yet, and it would be great to see them, yet they would be in the Objects tool, as they're models, same thing should go with other ships, like NASA ships, Star Trek Enterprise or Borg ships, or even the Star Destroyers in Star Wars.

It would be great to see those improvements in the next update, then it would be better.

I know this is alpha, but it would be nice to improve it.

Thanks.

[Cryo]

Very therough and thought out. I agree and would like to see all of the following add down the road. However Oblateness might show up father down the road.Atmosphere height will most likely show up with atmospheric scattering. Textures might show up sooner actually.(:V)

[Angel Armageddon]

Everything accept for 3 and 6.
 

[Cryo]

Everything accept for 3 and 6.
 

Why not? I mean the Dev's are in the Phantom zone.

[Physics_Hacker]

Here are some things that should be improved in the next update, if you guys run US2 and want to see this.

1. Make Planetary atmospheres shorter.
The atmospheres of Venus, Earth, Mars and other random planets with atmospheres are too thick in height, by a factor of 10.
In other programs like Celestia, the atmospheres are only 10/10th of their height used in US2, and if you look at real life photos of planets from space, such as Earth, you'll see that the atmospheres are much shorter.

2. Improve the Textures.
The worlds such as Earth, and the Gas Giants, along with its moons have either poor textures or random textures, they need to be improved
Earth's oceans look too bright and there aren't enough clouds, yet Venus's cloud layer looks fake, and uses Earth's cloud layer on it.

3. Add Oblateness for the Planets.
The planets rotate, and because of the rotational force, they get fatter at the equator and squished at the poles.
Mercury and Venus are fine, as their oblateness is 0, but Earth and the others need that.
Earth has an oblateness of 0.0033528 (0.33528%), The Moon has an oblateness of 0.0012 (0.12%), Mars has an oblateness of 0.006 (0.6%), Ceres has an oblateness of 0.068 (6.8%), Jupiter has an oblateness of 0.06487 (6.487%), Saturn has an oblateness of 0.0979 (0.979%), Uranus has an oblateness of 0.0229 (2.29%), and Neptune has and oblateness of 0.01711 (1.711%), yet Quaoar has an oblateness of 0.12 (12%).
Random planets and/or moons should have different oblateness values depending on the material, gravity and especially rotation.
This isn't even on US2 yet and it would be great to have it work.

4. Make Haumea distorted in dimensions.
Haumea is a scalene body, with a semi axes that's highly distorted, the x axis should be 980, the y axis should be 759, and the y axis should be 498, this is the radial semi axes, and it should be done in the next update.

5. Add tidal forces.
When something, depending on the density and what it's made of gets too close to something with more gravity, then tidal forces should distort it and even rip it apart, again like earlier, it depends on what it's made of as well as it's density.
Black Holes should distort stars when they get too close, and even eat them up and create an accretion disk orbiting the Black Hole.

6. Add realistic Death Stars and other ships.
There are no models of any of the Death Stars in Star Wars, The first, second and third haven't been made in this program yet, and it would be great to see them, yet they would be in the Objects tool, as they're models, same thing should go with other ships, like NASA ships, Star Trek Enterprise or Borg ships, or even the Star Destroyers in Star Wars.

It would be great to see those improvements in the next update, then it would be better.

I know this is alpha, but it would be nice to improve it.

Thanks.

1. This is correct, but as previously stated the devs are working on new atmosphere models so this may be fixed with that.

2. The textures issue is something that really doesn't need that much fixing- Earth's oceans aren't as dark colored as you might think, but I do agree they need to be a bit darker, or at least have a more saturated color. As for gas giants- the procedural textures do indeed need work, but the solar system textures are okay for now, they look decently realistic, except that maybe Uranus has a bit too much detail.

3. Oblateness would be nice to have but unless its above a few percent, this wouldn't effect much, especially visually, and would just make rendering planets harder (perfect spheres are easier to render than complex objects like oblate spheres, especially when the changes are minor)

4. This however, probably is worth asking for. A minor planet that has such distorted dimensions probably should be shown that way in-game.

5. This will be taken care of when SPH (smooth particle hydrodynamics) is implemented.

6. This would be nice, but shouldn't be a major concern, though if the devs would make it possible to put in our own 3D models (textures too maybe? probably?) then we could make our own ships and such and shae them with each other instead of making the devs do it for us.

Indeed it'd be nice to see in the next update but I doubt most of this will be in the actual next update, probably some of it in the next few updates

[Angel Armageddon]

Everything accept for 3 and 6.
 

Why not? I mean the Dev's are in the Phantom zone.

Adding oblateness to planets in Universe sandbox 2 seems pointless and may be really difficult to do so in the sim.
Adding space crafts from movies seems even more pointless. But I heard that there might be adding "mega" structures to Universe sandbox 2 in the future.

[Cryo]

Everything accept for 3 and 6.
 

Why not? I mean the Dev's are in the Phantom zone.

Adding oblateness to planets in Universe sandbox 2 seems pointless and may be really difficult to do so in the sim.
Adding space crafts from movies seems even more pointless. But I heard that there might be adding "mega" structures to Universe sandbox 2 in the future.

Pointless?Also i'd like to see what the Dev's input is on this.Calling it "pointless" is like saying atmospheric scattering isn't important because it's just a revamped cloak of gas around a planet.It in fact open's up a new area to earn about. Oblatness is important in accurate depictions of both planets and star's. Especially sense Oblatness is more prevalent with Gas Giants and in white and blue main sequence star's due to they're extreme rotations. Then again hypothetical "donut planet"(s) are also an extreme gas of matter rotating around a single point.

[N1CK]

Very therough and thought out. I agree and would like to see all of the following add down the road. However Oblateness might show up father down the road.Atmosphere height will most likely show up with atmospheric scattering. Textures might show up sooner actually.(:V)

The textures on Earth are not correct as there are islands every were were it should be ocean or land.