binary glitch?

[EndTraveler]

so, when I was trying to make my brown dwarf system, the brown dwarf and one of the moons suddenly became binary! help?

[tkulogo]

This has been a problem for a long time. I'm hoping for a day when we can select the orbital parent, and be able to select barycenters for binaries. The orbits in my 268 body system are all over the place because of this limitation.

[Jar]

so, when I was trying to make my brown dwarf system, the brown dwarf and one of the moons suddenly became binary! help?

What do you mean by suddenly became binary?

One note: the "orbital parent" does not affect the actual simulation of gravity and movement. It is simply a reference used when drawing orbital lines when Orbits are turned on. It can also affect things like using "Auto Orbit," which will set the velocity according to that. I've probably mentioned this before to you, tkulogo, but we do want to make improvements to setting up binaries in the future.

My question here is how this might relate to a situation where something becomes binary accidentally. 

[tkulogo]

so, when I was trying to make my brown dwarf system, the brown dwarf and one of the moons suddenly became binary! help?

What do you mean by suddenly became binary?

One note: the "orbital parent" does not affect the actual simulation of gravity and movement. It is simply a reference used when drawing orbital lines when Orbits are turned on. It can also affect things like using "Auto Orbit," which will set the velocity according to that. I've probably mentioned this before to you, tkulogo, but we do want to make improvements to setting up binaries in the future.

My question here is how this might relate to a situation where something becomes binary accidentally. 

Yes you've mentioned it, I think more than once, though not any details or timelines. I'll try to be more patient.

Since EndTraveler hasn't replied on what he meant, I'll explain what I had assumed he meant by becomes binary because it made sense to me. Depending on the movement in the system, a planet or star can take one of its moons or planets as the orbital parent. If you didn't know that the orbital parent is only used for visuals and orbital values and not the actual simulation, you could easily assume that the planet or star changed its interaction with the orbiting body and became binary.

[Jar]

Thanks, that seems like a likely explanation of what EndTraveler meant.

Yes you've mentioned it, I think more than once, though not any details or timelines. I'll try to be more patient.

I don't mean to suggest you need to stop talking about it or anything -- reminders that we can improve this are always good. We unfortunately don't have a timeline, because it's not something we're actively working on right now. We have higher priorities since binary tools are a bit more niche, but we do understand that there is room for improvement. I'm not entirely clear on the details myself, but when we've talked about it in the past, some on the team have mentioned an improvement that can go a long way with orbital parents being defined as positions in space rather than specific body references (with the option of a visual barycenter still). I think we also want to create a better UI for setting up barycenters and improve tools for editing orbits for objects in complex systems.

[tkulogo]

Thanks, that seems like a likely explanation of what EndTraveler meant.

Yes you've mentioned it, I think more than once, though not any details or timelines. I'll try to be more patient.

I don't mean to suggest you need to stop talking about it or anything -- reminders that we can improve this are always good. We unfortunately don't have a timeline, because it's not something we're actively working on right now. We have higher priorities since binary tools are a bit more niche, but we do understand that there is room for improvement. I'm not entirely clear on the details myself, but when we've talked about it in the past, some on the team have mentioned an improvement that can go a long way with orbital parents being defined as positions in space rather than specific body references (with the option of a visual barycenter still). I think we also want to create a better UI for setting up barycenters and improve tools for editing orbits for objects in complex systems.

If you want my input, the UI for barycenters works just fine. 90% of what I need to do would be fixed by being able to select orbital parents. The other 10% is being able to select barycenters as the orbital parent and selecting orbital parents for the barycenters along with a color and a visible orbit.

[Jar]

Thanks for your feedback! I do remember you mentioning this or something like this before. 

90% of what I need to do [...]

In your experience, in what area are these issues? Are they issues with just the visual orbital paths, are they with setting up the binaries, editing the binaries, setting up more than 2-body systems, something else?

[tkulogo]

In your experience, in what area are these issues? Are they issues with just the visual orbital paths, are they with setting up the binaries, editing the binaries, setting up more than 2-body systems, something else?

I'm worried about the visuals. I think you've seen my system, and to get there, in a small number of cases, I've had to manually modify the X, Y, and Z velocities of the bodies. It's been a challenge, but that's part of the fun. The problem is, I'd like to show off my system to people that know Firefly/Serenity and don't know Universe Sandbox. I attached a video showing the problem. It doesn't look like a stable system, and the visual orbits are, quite frankly, worthless.

[Jar]

Understood, thank you very much for your feedback on this. I'll take it to the team and maybe we can find some time sooner rather than later to work on this smaller improvement while also working on the bigger physics features. 

[tkulogo]

Thanks. It's so nice the way you guys address individuals' needs.

[Jar]

You're welcome! 

Though let me add some clarification to better set expectations for others who may be reading: we really aren't equipped to handle individual requests. Feedback and suggestions tend to work on a larger scale -- part of my job is to take note of what the community wants (and largely beyond this forum as we have a lot of different channels), not just what one person wants. But sometimes it's easy to see a vague desire coming from a lot of different people, and it takes an individual to articulate what exactly is being requested for the suggestion to gain traction and to turn it into actionable feedback for us. Requests for improvements to binaries in Universe Sandbox are fairly common, but your explanations of the specifics have helped a lot.

Still, I'm also just one person on the team, so while I can advocate for certain changes and requests, I can't dictate what our development plans will be, and there are always countless considerations to make. I say it a lot but it's worth repeating: we've got a lot on our to-do list.

[tkulogo]

Jar, let me say, you wear that public relations hat very well... I guess won't even ask for the Amiga support...