Satellites

Surveillance Satellite

Overview

This OXP adds satellites to the main planet, plus any secondary planets that may be available through Additional Planets.

Ideas with a revolutionary potential sometimes remain underestimated or just unnoticed!

This is the case for the Satellites OXP (author – Rorschachhamster). Seemingly just a nice exercise in coding and just one more OXP in the Ambience category.

But, it is a jolly hard task to simulate true orbital dynamics in Oolite:

In the real world, the calculation of orbital dynamics is based on the integration of acceleration vectors and on the energy conservation law. If you have no acceleration produced by a propulsion engine, your total energy (sum of kinetic and potential energy) would have a constant value. So on an elliptic orbit you’ll trade velocity for altitude and vice versa.

In Oolite we have no gravity nor energy. Acceleration is limited to propulsion acceleration/deceleration parameter thrust and this is not a vector value – it is just the rate of change of ship speed. So we need some trick to simulate true orbital dynamics – calculating the ship's position for the next frame and placing the ship directly into it.

Unfortunately JavaScript is not a suitable instrument for smooth dynamic simulations! It generates only 4 fps, so you’ll see the jerky sequence of frames instead of a decent illusion of smooth movement.

Bad idea. Forget it.

Satellites OXP uses a more elegant approach, based on AI behavior. It generates a realistically looking pattern of circular movement around a planet without sophisticated mathematics.

Source: Stranger's introduction to his Orbital Stations OXP

COMLR Satellite

Satellite Types

There are 4 different types of satellite that can be added to a system.

Surveillance Satellites

These satellites are designed to map and scan planetary regions, down to a very fine detail level.

COM and COMLR Satellites

These satellites aid and facilitate intra- and inter-planetary communications.

Satellite Telescope

These satellites are designed to scan deep space for anomalies (like Thargoid invasion craft or rogue comets and asteroids).

Download

Through the in-game Expansions Manager, or
Download Satellites.oxz v1.10 (downloaded 1773 times).

License

This OXP is released under the Creative Commons Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike 3.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/