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Orbit an object
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| Phil | Date: Thursday, 02.01.2014, 17:58 | Message # 1 |
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Space Tourist
Group: Users
United Kingdom
Messages: 39
Status: Offline
| If I have planet Earth centred, and I'm at 45,000 km, how do I slowly and smoothly orbit the planet/object staying the same distance away from it?
I know I can choose spaceship mode and right-click-hold-drag the mouse. This is the movement I want to emulate, but I want to do it with the keys, so I can orbit 'hands off' indefinitely. I can press Q or E, and get a really nice smooth rotational movement in spaceship mode, and I'd like the same thing in an orbital movement.
When I enable 'tracking' the Earth and press A or D (instinctively expecting to orbit round the planet), for some reason the WSAD keys give some very strange directional behaviour and loss of control - they don't do what you would expect them to do (or at least, what I'd expect them to do, which is keep the planet in the centre and orbit around at the same distance).
Thanks.
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| apenpaap | Date: Thursday, 02.01.2014, 18:26 | Message # 2 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
Status: Offline
| There's no button to simply enter orbit; you have to thrust in a direction perpendicular to the planet at orbital speed. You can calculate that speed through the formula:
v=((GM)/r)^(1/2)
In which G is the gravitational constant, 6.67*10^-11 N(m/kg)^2, M the mass of the object you want to orbit, and r the distance to that object's core.
So if you want a circular orbit at 45000 km height (51000 km from the core) of the Earth (which weighs 6*10^24 kg), you get:
v=((6.67*10^-11*6*10^24)/51000000)^(1/2)=2800 m/s
So to get into a circular orbit at that height, move 2.8 km/s in a direction perpendicular to the surface. You can do this by selecting Earth, pressing T to keep it locked in the centre, and holding A or D until you reach that speed.
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Thursday, 02.01.2014, 19:01 | Message # 3 |
 Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
Status: Offline
| apenpaap, he's not asking about orbiting with a ship, but with the camera.
Phil, there is no way to do what you're asking at present. The only workaround would be to manually fly a spaceship into orbit, lock it there, and then accelerate time to whatever speed you want to orbit at.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Friday, 03.01.2014, 04:21 | Message # 4 |
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Cosmic Curator
Group: Administrators
United States
Messages: 8717
Status: Offline
| Quote Phil (  ) I'll press W to try to go closer to the object, and much of the time the camera will move off to the side or even move away from the object
This is some kind of bug with using T in this version. Just change the camera binding (switch from follow to rotate or vice versa, or change objects) to fix it. Of course, this bug means that using tracking won't work correctly if you need to move the camera in the process.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| Phil | Date: Friday, 03.01.2014, 11:42 | Message # 5 |
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Space Tourist
Group: Users
United Kingdom
Messages: 39
Status: Offline
| Thanks so much for your reply, but that doesn't seem to help.
Bug or no bug, I'll just resign to the fact that it doesn't work as intuitively as I expected.
I'll just need to use the mouse for orbiting.
Cheers.
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