Creating Systems from Debris/Dust/etc

[MortalDanger]

Just purchased this wonderful program a few days ago, but haven't had that much time to mess with it (the learning curve is kind of steep, especially for one with no math skills to speak of). 

What I was trying to do, unsuccessfully, was to create a bunch of debris in space, or perhaps around some gravity well, in hopes that it will coalesce into a star system, or some kind of functioning body.

Is that possible?  Perhaps with a little tinkering?

Thanks.

[Naru523]

Dust cannot form into small asteroids/planets. So your best bet is to make lots of small asteroids.

[MortalDanger]

Right, so no dust.  Launching asteroids seems a bit impractical.  When I do it, it of course has to be by hand.  That and they don't seem to interact with each other.  They just fly in a straight line forever.  I'm looking for a little more direction.  Such as some settings I'm going to need to flip on to make sure it works properly. 

I tried using a star or Jupiter and using the explode command but that doesn't work to well as it just creates bodies around a central location and doesn't actually explode anything at all.

[SandboxSpenc]

I too tried exploding jupiter and a star, and they ended up the same way. I just bought this game too, but Ive learned much. The reason for the weird explosions is that the velocity of the explosion leftovers are too slow and they cannot fly away. This happens with almost all large bodies.

[DroppedaBeat]

Alas, no, at this point one cannot "watch" systems form "naturally."


I personally think that such a thing would be an interesting thing to look into-- allowing stars, planets, etc to form on their own over time from dust thrown off from collisions, etc. That may also lead into star life-cycles being simulated as well, as well as more realistic collisions.

Of course, the sheer amount of processing power that would require is something that many computers lack. Perhaps, if this feature could ever be implemented, it could be something you could turn on and off? Heck, it could even be an add-on simulator or a different simulator entirely, if it is out of the capability of US at the moment.

Something to think about, I suppose.

[bterrill]

I'm not sure if you're aware you can change the veloicity at which things explode (and in to how many pieces). I make huge mass planets (50, 1000 jupiter masses, whatever I need) and explode them all the time to create zillions of astrioids that end up smashing in to other bodies to form huge planets and neat astroid belts.

What I generally do is set the explode veloicity to "escape veloicity" and then backtrrack from there. If the escape is say 500KM/s I'll try to explode it at about 150. See if it re-collapses on itself or just goes so fast that they fly way out of range. It takes tinkering, but once you find the proper velociity I just re-up the mass and then get it to what I need.

I end up with systems of thousands of objects over time , and I use the exploding bodies to populate the vast majority. Nothing like waking up in the morning to find my planets grown a lot in mass and much of the clutter is gone (or flung so far out in space it might as well be ...)

I've wanted to have the ability for things to form from geosync rings ... but I still have hope! I like to use those on stars or blackholes and overtime the rings fling out but do not form anything