Dust collisions

[Pivotfreak]

Would it be possible to make that dust particles collide?
And when two of them collide they will form a very small planet.
And when other Dust particles hit this planet it will grow bigger and bigger.
Like the birth of a planet.
That would be cool.
Possible?

[atomic7732]

Many people have already suggested this. For one, I personally thing with the dust particles so spread out they can't collide. Seriously, try putting a bunch of Mimas's and they don't collide in orbit around a star.  

Lol we're having a new wave of people who were just like me and supernova... Will they be professional Everything Else Universe Sandboxists?

[Darvince]

Lol we're having a new wave of people who were just like me and supernova... Will they be professional Everything Else Universe Sandboxists?

H3ll y3s

[Bla]

I think the problem with dust is that they don't have any radius themselves, they're just points with a small image that scales up as you zoom out. I don't know if this is true, but that's my hypothesis of how they are.
So, since they're points, they can't collide. But if a point gets inside a 3-dimensional body, it could be registered. So particles could maybe have an "add mass" feature. You could set how much mass particles would add to real bodies they collide with, so you could use dust in protodiscs to feed existing "seeds" of small bodies. This isn't implemented, but I guess it could be. As long as particles are just points, it wouldn't be possible to make them form bodies.
...Unless you have a way of registering if they get very close to each other, which would count as a collission, and merge them into a small 3-dimensional body. I just think the problem with dust is that it'll take loads of CPU if they affect the rest of the simulation with gravity, or if the simulation has to check how close every single particle is to the other bodies every single time step.

This is just my understanding of how the program works. It may not be correct.

[atomic7732]

That makes alot more sense than I ever would have thought of.

[kevin94]

dust collisions and epic light show we dust from into a planet

[Naru523]

Seriously, try putting a bunch of Mimas's and they don't collide in orbit around a star.  

Probably unrelated to the topic, but my guess is that gravity is holding them together, like how Saturn kept its ring into place (though in time it'll probably get disrupted).

[SuperNova]

Lol, nvm

[Darvince]

Seriously, try putting a bunch of Mimas's and they don't collide in orbit around a star. 

Y' don't use Mimas. Y' use Rhea. >:]

[Chaotic Cow]

A feature I want in the future.

[kevin94]

cool

[Dan Dixon]

Bla's explanation is accurate.

In Universe Sandbox there are two basic types of objects, dust and bodies. Bodies are more complex and can effect other bodies and dust. Dust is simpler and doesn't effect other bodies and so you can have more of it before the simulations runs too slow to be usable.

So particles could maybe have an "add mass" feature. You could set how much mass particles would add to real bodies they collide with, so you could use dust in protodiscs to feed existing "seeds" of small bodies. This isn't implemented, but I guess it could be.

This is a good idea. However like all ideas, the hard part is figuring out how the UI should work and how to expose this feature to you, the user. Thoughts or ideas on how to implement this?

Here's a short article on the hidden cost of adding new features:
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch05_Hidden_Costs.php


To really do what Pivotfreak is asking about I need to provide tools to create lots of bodies very easily or a way to convert dust to bodies. Although all of these ideas have the hidden costs as suggested above.

[Darvince]

cool

Kevin, if you want to post something unrelated to Universe Sandbox, then you can put it in Everything Else,

[Chaotic Cow]

I can think of making Dust a temporary object until placed. You can place large groups of dust and once placed because it's own thing.

[Naru523]

I did notice Dan took off the 'Turn into dust' or w/e in US2 from US1. I think he did, or just that I haven't played US for awhile.

[Dan Dixon]

I did notice Dan took off the 'Turn into dust' or w/e in US2 from US1. I think he did, or just that I haven't played US for awhile.

I added it as a Delete option. Click on the >> on the Delete button to see the option to turn a body into dust.

Perhaps that feature isn't in the right place. Thoughts on how to make it more clear?

[Naru523]

Ah, thank you.

As for the location, I guess it could be in the same place, or maybe on the left UI?

[deoxy99]

I did notice Dan took off the 'Turn into dust' or w/e in US2 from US1. I think he did, or just that I haven't played US for awhile.

I added it as a Delete option. Click on the >> on the Delete button to see the option to turn a body into dust.

Perhaps that feature isn't in the right place. Thoughts on how to make it more clear?

It should be under explosion.