Suggestions!

[atomic7732]

Light: The light should be like AstroGrav, where it will illuminate the correct section of the planet and then blurs as you get farther from the planet, so if you are at jupiter, and the earth is on the other side of the sun then you se the earth glowing. Check out AstroGrav to see what I mean. You can download a free trial for 14 days.
And also make it so that you can only see the objects you could, and a button so make everything brighter so you can see more. And there should be one last button where it shows all objects.

Viewpoint: You shout be able to right-click or whatever, on an object, and view from it, then press, say, ctrl+shift+click to get out. So you can see from the surface, what you really would see. And drag to look from another part of the object. And have another button to make you fixed to the surface (so you would rotate with the object). That way, you could make comets and see them at night. If you put that with internal-calculating frames, but only showing what ever you put in the time-step, you could have it on a fixed time at night to just watch it move accros the sky.

Orbits: You should put a button to toggle Orbits. (Trail/Full orbit/None)

Orbital Elements:Have a place to enter orbital elements so you can enter preferences in the UI.

[atommo999]

also you could have a go at improving the way the cable used on test elevator works. when you increase the timestep, the cable streches so much the planet disappears... but its ok when the timestep is low

[Dan Dixon]

Light: The light should be like AstroGrav, where it will illuminate the correct section of the planet and then blurs as you get farther from the planet, so if you are at jupiter, and the earth is on the other side of the sun then you se the earth glowing. Check out AstroGrav to see what I mean. You can download a free trial for 14 days.
And also make it so that you can only see the objects you could, and a button so make everything brighter so you can see more. And there should be one last button where it shows all objects.

I'm working on this. Light emitting from stars will probably be in the next release.

Viewpoint: You shout be able to right-click or whatever, on an object, and view from it, then press, say, ctrl+shift+click to get out. So you can see from the surface, what you really would see. And drag to look from another part of the object. And have another button to make you fixed to the surface (so you would rotate with the object). That way, you could make comets and see them at night. If you put that with internal-calculating frames, but only showing what ever you put in the time-step, you could have it on a fixed time at night to just watch it move accros the sky.

I like this idea. Basically being able to attach the camera to a bodies surface and point it out. It might not be in the next version, but should be relatively easy to do.

Orbits: You should put a button to toggle Orbits. (Trail/Full orbit/None)

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Please explain.

Orbital Elements:Have a place to enter orbital elements so you can enter preferences in the UI.

I've already got this working.

[atomic7732]

The orbits, I mean have a button That says "orbit type" or something, and it changes the orbit from:

Full Orbit: to show the whole orbit from the planet around the star on the path it takes and back, without fading. I don't like putting it on a high trail number because, it lags, and I think this is due to the fading.

Trail: How it is now

None: No trail

[monmarfori]

if you set trails too high the simulation will run slow

[atomic7732]

if you set trails too high the simulation will run slow

That's lagging...

[hbmp88]

I don't think the fading is what slows it down it's the trail whether it disappears or not. Are you saying the orbit remains a constant ellipse with no changes until you add another body? If so that would not be possible since the closer two objects get the stronger the gravity. This means the orbit of a body in a system with three or more objects would be constantly changing.

(Is this what you are talking about?)

[Dan Dixon]

I don't think the fading is what slows it down it's the trail whether it disappears or not.

Correct. The slow down is simply because the trails are being drawn.

There are two types of lines: projected paths and trails.
- Projected paths show where the body is headed (and based on simple calculations)
- Trails show where the body was (and is based on saved points)

Currently projected paths are drawn with single pixel lines and trails are drawn with 3D planes.

3D planes look better but take longer to position, rotate, and draw.

My plan is to allow either type of line (3D or single pixel) be used for either type of line (projected or trail).

I'm also going to allow trails to remain visible even after their originating body is destroyed. (so they won't instantly disappear when the planet crashes into the Sun)

Using single pixel lines for everything will make the simulation run faster.

Viewpoint: You shout be able to right-click or whatever, on an object, and view from it...

I've thought about this some more and have a really great solution in mind. It's not as simple as I originally thought, but I think you'll be pleased. (although no promises on this for the next release)

[atomic7732]

As long as it's before 2011, im fine, take your time and perfect it, although i hope it's sooner.

Edit - You should make an option to make projected path widen as it gets farther, as it is more uncertain do to gravity!

[Dan Dixon]

As long as it's before 2011...

I feel comfortable promising the "view from a body" feature before 2011.

[FGFG]

Another idea: if i'm not wrong a new peice of trail is drawn when it makes a certain angle with the previous one (so, when bodies travel along a line no other trails are drawn). Because of this, however, there is a bug when you erase the trails: i often see some trails linked from the body to the point the body was when the trails desappear; i think that they don't find a previous segment, so the angle to fix them doesn't exist.

Not considering the bug, this is a very useful method if you don't want to draw an high number of segments when the planets follow straight lines, but trails made in a few seconds are, often, much shorter than other trails made in more time (e.g. the Mercury one, and the Pluto one).

If you fix the drawing of a new segment of trail, e.g. every 5 frames (obviously an editable number), you will obtain many more trails on a straight line path, but they will be a constant number and they will rapresent also the velocity of the body as the more the body is fast, the longer will be his trail. Mercury will drow full orbits, Pluto a very little trail.

You can let the user decide the number of segments drown (or how many time they need to disappear) and how often they are drown.

[Dan Dixon]

Another idea: if i'm not wrong a new peice of trail is drawn when it makes a certain angle with the previous one...

Yes. That is basically how the trails work.

there is a bug when you erase the trails: i often see some trails linked from the body to the point the body was when the trails desappear; i think that they don't find a previous segment, so the angle to fix them doesn't exist.

I've seen this too, but not sure what's causing it. Either way it needs to be fixed.

If you fix the drawing of a new segment of trail, e.g. every 5 frames (obviously an editable number), you will obtain many more trails on a straight line path, but they will be a constant number and they will rapresent also the velocity of the body as the more the body is fast, the longer will be his trail. Mercury will drow full orbits, Pluto a very little trail.

This is similar to what I've been thinking about for trails. Changing them so that the control is time based instead of angle/segment based (As asking the user to set the trail length based on segments is unintuitive.)

What do you think? Current the control is the number of segments. What should it be?

I'm also going to allow trails to remain visible even after their originating body is destroyed. (so they won't instantly disappear when the planet crashes into the Sun)

I made this work last night by allowing trails to exist without a 'parent' body. It still needs some work as the fade out (when the body is destroyed) is hard coded to be frame rate based.

[FGFG]

What do you think? Current the control is the number of segments. What should it be?

I  think that there would need at least 2 controls:

One that give precision to the trails (frames per segment: the more segments are drown in the same time, the more the trails would be precise, however it could take account of the timestep instead of the frames, you have to decide as you are a programmer),

The other would give lenght (fade out speed, that is the actual number of frames after all, but with the frame/timestep based method it could be transformed in seconds).



p.s. Check your personal messages, you'll find something intresting

[atommo999]

one cool thing you could improve is the way things like stars age. that way we could see how the solar system would end with the star becoming a red giant  also the stars could leave their cores like white dwarfs that eventually become black dwarfs, neutron stars or pulsars and black holes. i think ikt would be really cool 

[FGFG]

Yeah! You could add a slider with the age of the star. It could be longer or smaller depending on the class of the star. When it reches the end it will make the star change class: e.g. supernova, white dwarf, black hole...

[Bla]

FGFG, I think that's an impressively great idea! I vote yes.

[SuperNova]

Yeah! You could add a slider with the age of the star. It could be longer or smaller depending on the class of the star. When it reches the end it will make the star change class: e.g. supernova, white dwarf, black hole...

fantastic idea!

[atommo999]

also there could be an explosion depending on the mass of the star. e.g: our sun would become a nebula before dissapearing or a dense star could explode in a supernova!

[atommo999]

another thing you could possibly improve is that planets could get deformd on collisions and also if you blow up a planet it turns into loads of little planets... you could make it so its parts of rock and metiorites that scatter out from the explosion instead

[monmarfori]

If our sun would be a black dwarf. and our Solar System would be dead

[hbmp88]

And I think stars need to emit energy. Here is a good way to represent it. It's a game called dust. You can toggle the way it shows pressure. I think it can be used to demonstrate energy and could be toggled on and of in the next update.

Here:

http://www.notdoppler.com/frame/639.html

Create an explosion by using the elements. In the lower right hand corner there is a thing "BG-line". Click to toggle through the different ways to represent pressure, wind, heat, etc. Find something you like and maybe you can add it to US.

I'm thinking you can emit energy from a star over time, then when it explodes, make a big burst. This could also be added to the light coming from stars.

[Chaotic Cow]

A lot of great ideas. Some which if were to be implemented wouldn't be for awhile but all great ideas.

Just remember that we don't run super computers. This is mainly for the average person.

Though maybe there are ways to implement some technology without being so harsh.

[hbmp88]

My idea is coming from a simple online game, and doesn't need a super computer to run at all.

[Chaotic Cow]

My idea is coming from a simple online game, and doesn't need a super computer to run at all.

2D and it's also not calculating systems and/or galaxies.

Not saying it's a bad idea. I love the idea.

[hbmp88]

New suggestion:

I have been having trouble zooming in and out to the right distance from stars to place planets at a certain distance. For example, I try to put Earth at 150 mil km from the sun but its at 146. I tap "S" to zoom out slightly but it goes to 157 mil km. Then I just keep on fiddling with it until I accidentally get to 210 mil km. Then I just give up.

Sadly, this actually happened to me...

[Naru523]

Same.

[Bla]

What about a Ctrl + Z (undo) option? I've thought about how useful that would be for a long time.
Not that it needs to save the last 100 things you do, perhaps just the last one would be very useful.