Supernova /planets ?

I always feel wierd seing planets around Supernova. As in real life a supernova is a star explosion, it is weird to see viable planets around it. Or at least the space conditions to reach them should be harsh (taking damages the closer we are moving to the star)

Hello Flap,

FibreTigre here (writer of the game).

This question is often raised in the mail we receive.

I have an humorous answer about that :

Let me advocate the idea of having an inhabitable planet around a supernova : first, it can be the early stages of a supernova, and the planet dying or about to die (after all, if our sun were to turn into a supernova, we would still
have 8 mn to live !).

Actually to be fair, even if the galaxy is randomized, the odds are small that you actually find a garden planet around a supernova.

We tried to make Out There a game that is slightly more accurate that your average sci-fi game, but we sometimes make mistake. Thank you for your concern about it.

FibreTigre

It's a game, so anything goes. But I still feel that it spoils a bit the atmosphere : in my imagination, supernova are sudden dreadfull events.

Admin wrote:
Actually to be fair, even if the galaxy is randomized, the odds are small that you actually find a garden planet around a supernova.

Well, at least in beta it is not the case : supernova always have a garden, a rock and a gaz planet. So, these stars are actually the most reliable and comfortable stars in the game.

flap wrote:
Well, at least in beta it is not the case : supernova always have a garden, a rock and a gaz planet. So, these stars are actually the most reliable and comfortable stars in the game.

Hi flap,

There's a 40% chance that the supernova has 3 types of planets at a time.

geff wrote:

flap wrote:
Well, at least in beta it is not the case : supernova always have a garden, a rock and a gaz planet. So, these stars are actually the most reliable and comfortable stars in the game.

Hi flap,

There's a 40% chance that the supernova has 3 types of planets at a time.

Hmm. I might have been lucky then, because in my last game I have had that configuration with the 6 supernova I visited.

Actually there are several ways that a supernovae remnant could end up with a planet around it.  When a star goes supernova it either turns into a neutron star or a black hole, now in the event of a black hole the super massive gravitational forces suck up pretty much the entire system as near as we can tell, however, it is not entirely impossible for a rouge planet to be captured by the gravity well of a black hole and make a stable orbit, it is not massively plausible but from what I know of orbital mechanics it is possible, this is why a station is capable of existing around the black hole, it just is setup in a stable orbit far from the accretion disk thus not being banged up by the debris, or it has survived the event and is slowly moving toward the hole and the closer it gets the higher the time dilation effect becomes but this is not the point.  

The other side of this situation is the neutron star, or pulsar they can AND DO have planets.   PSR B1620-26 is a binary system with a pulsar and white dwarf star and has a confirmed extra-solar planet orbiting the pair of stars.  PSR B1257+12 has three planets orbiting its pulsar two found in 92 and another in 94.  I am not allowed to link but you can look these up on Wikipedia under pulsar. These planets could be rogue planets captured after the supernova event, or planets that survived said event.  On the stellar level there is no reason to believe that an explosion completely destroys everything in the vicinity, after all plenty of things survive in the blast radius of smaller explosions.  We are also speaking of objects that are massive as well as very distant, a supernova's energy would dissipate over distance, or else we would be hit by these massive energy waves after a star explodes, so it stands to reason some planets could be far enough from the event to survive.

Either way when I see "Supernova" as a star type, I always think neutron star/pulsar, after all supernovae are very ephemeral events.  I suppose they can be renamed but....  eh...

Well lets say they did change it to be more realistic. it would be the most dangerous place to go, like unless you have good shields you die even at 100 hull. But if you do make it there then it is loaded with all the resources (except omega probably) the game can offer in abundance. Honestly that sounds over powered to me, unless supernova's where more rare...
OH and the supernova artwork is of a supernova and not a star right?

Well I think, without again getting technical, the label supernova may just mean the light you pickup on your scope is that of a supernova. Yes the art isn't of a supernova but of a star. I think the issue here is again one of labels, and since the game already has neutron stars in it (and pulsars) and the fact that supernovae are rare that the star that you find be it black hole or neutron should then be updated in the chart. This gives a reason that it does up a as a supernova (your light-years away when you originally saw it in your scope and the old light still shows the event but the event ended years ago) and a reason to change the chart AND added difficulty/uncertainty of what is going to be there (black hole or neutron star with planets)

Or, I suggest the name change to pulsar to differentiate between sizes of neutron stars maybe? It would be poetic license but then again calling it a supernova I guess already is....

Just more thoughts...

That would be interesting if while using only the telescope there was a chance for things to be different then you expected upon arrival. If you had say the Informeter then it would be accurate with no surprises.

Yeah, I have always known that the stars we see are essentially old data, they may have all winked out last year and we still would not know it for a few more years in the case of the closest stars. I never thought of the practicality of relative light lag and ftl travel until I started reading a lot of scifi indie writers like Ryk Brown and B.V. Larson to name a few. In the book expanse by Ryk Brown the star charts being used we're all based on old light and bam pooped out RIGHT inside the accretion disk of a burgeoning black hole, in fact even an interferometer still uses old light relativity is a cruel mistress when dealing in ftl travel especially in the unknown, it could easily be used to justify some messed up encounters in the game for a load of reasons realistically. But I also think of the guys having to code it all and I feel bad for suggesting to many ideas that mess with core gameplay, but then again they may want is to toss out or crazy ideas for omega edition, is a great game and I love it but there is always room for improvement in many different ways and I think one is a difficulty slider that can tweak these kinds of things, making it to different from the base game would be bad but having the option to change the base gameplay I think is a swell idea

I am pretty sure too that game design is frozen now.
However, I find that your idea, MrWizerd, is very interesting.