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Hello out there,
So I finally got around to starting a thread on one of my current project-type thingies. To explain this a bit better, I'll need to give you some back story on my use of Orbiter so far. I discovered Orbiter back in 2012, and started playing a sort of personal VSA with it soon after (dont think I ever named it). I built a base on the moon, a space station in LEO, landed on Mercury and left a station in a high orbit of it to boot. After a while of doing this though, my skills with flying more accurate, realistic missions grew, and I began to find my whole VSA with Arrow Freighters, DGIVs, space station modules in UCGO boxes, etc. kinda flat. At that point the VSA died a quiet death & I moved on to other things.
Lately though, I was finding that I missed doing a VSA sort of thing, as having a bit of structure to ones Orbiter operations is really half of the fun IMO. I often found that setting up a personal VSA in sol system didnt work, maybe just because the whole thing was just too familiar to me already. So, as you might have guessed, I went searching for some new real estate...
After a fair bit of searching, I finally decided on the Upsilon Andromedae star system by Donatelo200. It was a quality add-on, had nice textures, and plenty of planets and moons to explore. I decided to locate my extrasolar civililization on Ups And DI (the first moon of the fourth planet orbiting Upsilon Andromedae)
With the day night cycle being so long, I would imagine that life on the surface must be difficult due to wild temperature changes. It would likely make sense to move the civilization underground, like...
Hobbits in SPAAACE!!!
Maybe the doors dont have to be round though. :lol:
A shot of Ups And DI
Some screenshots of the other large moons orbiting Ups And D, made using the onboard telescope on Horizon station.
(DII to DVII, in order)
(Complete IMS systems crash here, followed by a complete restart :facepalm: Blasted lunar shadow changes.)
The Ups And D moon system as a whole looks like this
So it seems obvious that the next step after the orbit-to-orbit flight should be a landing program on the surface of Ups And DII. DII looked an awful lot like Europa, so establishing surface operations will likely allow for water mining, fuel production, etc.
Not visible on here, but still very useful for ISRU, would be the Shepherd moons and the rings themselves of Ups And D. They should also contain decent quantities of water ice and other volatiles, obviously great targets for exploration and exploitation.
On a much bigger scale, looking ahead to exploration of the system as a whole, things seem pretty difficult.
Ups And C might be doable, but still a massive challenge with regards to getting a crew there and back safely. The rest of the planets wont appear to be so forgiving, so missions there will need a lot of planning in advance.
Some things that I wanted to bring up:
-How is Ups And DI habitable? The orbit of its parent planet is rough 2.5 AU, and Upsilon Andromedae is listed as an F8V, slightly bigger and hotter than our sun. How big of a part would tidal heating play in keeping the planet warm, and what sort of impact would this sort of enviroment have on the planet? The day is roughly 20 earth days long, which I would think might create a rather odd ecosystem (specialized predators and herbivores for either the night or the day?)
-Any suggestions on what the Andromedans (civilization on Ups DI with the space program in question) might look/behave like? The surface pressure and surface gravity are a little high (154 kPa and 10.7 m/s2 respectively), but would that have any major impact on how the species evolving on it would look?
-I also wonder what the history of this species would look like, my personal idea being to make it a narrative heavily involved with sea trade and exploration. With so much coastline, and so little fertile land, I don't find it hard to imagine a world similar to ancient Greece, with dozens of city states competing for a slice of the global pie?
I do plan to do some development work on this in order to include things that I want for it. I plan on creating a small space center environment at the main base on Ups DI, so far I have a good chunk of the ATC tower done, awaiting textures:
My eventual goal would be to produce something good enough to offer to Donatelo200 as extra content expanding the add-on. Even if he doesn't like it, I can still release the content as a separate package on OHM.
Please feel free to comment on anything, I would appreciate any thoughts and/or suggestions on how to make the project better.
One last thing: Izack, you and your space colonists will have to shove off :lol:. This system's taken!!!
So I finally got around to starting a thread on one of my current project-type thingies. To explain this a bit better, I'll need to give you some back story on my use of Orbiter so far. I discovered Orbiter back in 2012, and started playing a sort of personal VSA with it soon after (dont think I ever named it). I built a base on the moon, a space station in LEO, landed on Mercury and left a station in a high orbit of it to boot. After a while of doing this though, my skills with flying more accurate, realistic missions grew, and I began to find my whole VSA with Arrow Freighters, DGIVs, space station modules in UCGO boxes, etc. kinda flat. At that point the VSA died a quiet death & I moved on to other things.
Lately though, I was finding that I missed doing a VSA sort of thing, as having a bit of structure to ones Orbiter operations is really half of the fun IMO. I often found that setting up a personal VSA in sol system didnt work, maybe just because the whole thing was just too familiar to me already. So, as you might have guessed, I went searching for some new real estate...
After a fair bit of searching, I finally decided on the Upsilon Andromedae star system by Donatelo200. It was a quality add-on, had nice textures, and plenty of planets and moons to explore. I decided to locate my extrasolar civililization on Ups And DI (the first moon of the fourth planet orbiting Upsilon Andromedae)
With the day night cycle being so long, I would imagine that life on the surface must be difficult due to wild temperature changes. It would likely make sense to move the civilization underground, like...
Hobbits in SPAAACE!!!
Maybe the doors dont have to be round though. :lol:
A shot of Ups And DI
Some screenshots of the other large moons orbiting Ups And D, made using the onboard telescope on Horizon station.
(DII to DVII, in order)
(Complete IMS systems crash here, followed by a complete restart :facepalm: Blasted lunar shadow changes.)
The Ups And D moon system as a whole looks like this
So it seems obvious that the next step after the orbit-to-orbit flight should be a landing program on the surface of Ups And DII. DII looked an awful lot like Europa, so establishing surface operations will likely allow for water mining, fuel production, etc.
Not visible on here, but still very useful for ISRU, would be the Shepherd moons and the rings themselves of Ups And D. They should also contain decent quantities of water ice and other volatiles, obviously great targets for exploration and exploitation.
On a much bigger scale, looking ahead to exploration of the system as a whole, things seem pretty difficult.
Ups And C might be doable, but still a massive challenge with regards to getting a crew there and back safely. The rest of the planets wont appear to be so forgiving, so missions there will need a lot of planning in advance.
Some things that I wanted to bring up:
-How is Ups And DI habitable? The orbit of its parent planet is rough 2.5 AU, and Upsilon Andromedae is listed as an F8V, slightly bigger and hotter than our sun. How big of a part would tidal heating play in keeping the planet warm, and what sort of impact would this sort of enviroment have on the planet? The day is roughly 20 earth days long, which I would think might create a rather odd ecosystem (specialized predators and herbivores for either the night or the day?)
-Any suggestions on what the Andromedans (civilization on Ups DI with the space program in question) might look/behave like? The surface pressure and surface gravity are a little high (154 kPa and 10.7 m/s2 respectively), but would that have any major impact on how the species evolving on it would look?
-I also wonder what the history of this species would look like, my personal idea being to make it a narrative heavily involved with sea trade and exploration. With so much coastline, and so little fertile land, I don't find it hard to imagine a world similar to ancient Greece, with dozens of city states competing for a slice of the global pie?
I do plan to do some development work on this in order to include things that I want for it. I plan on creating a small space center environment at the main base on Ups DI, so far I have a good chunk of the ATC tower done, awaiting textures:
My eventual goal would be to produce something good enough to offer to Donatelo200 as extra content expanding the add-on. Even if he doesn't like it, I can still release the content as a separate package on OHM.
Please feel free to comment on anything, I would appreciate any thoughts and/or suggestions on how to make the project better.
One last thing: Izack, you and your space colonists will have to shove off :lol:. This system's taken!!!
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