Realistic starmasses distribution

[muxec]

Masses of newborn stars are distributed by power-law (reference: http://webast.ast.obs-mip.fr/hyperz/hyp ... node7.html ).Let's define lowest mass as 0.09 Sunmases (brown dwarf if less). If the galaxy is large enough (several Mstars) we can see masses up to 60 stars. We can implement a age dependensy.

Colors of main sequense (not really realistic, to be fun in game)
0.08-0.4 sunmasses - red main sequense,
0.4-0.8 sunmasses - orange
0.8 - 2.4 sunmasses - Yellow
2.4 - 3.0 sunmasses - white-yellow
3.0 - 6.0 sunmasses - white
6.0-10.0 sunmasses - white-blue
10.0+ sunmasses - blue, bright blue, ultraviolet, up to x-ray. (really ultraviolets are the lagest known).

EVolution, lifetimes:
Red - almost infinite lifetime
Orange - 150-10000 billion years, than black dwarf. (almost infinite)
Yellow - in average 12 Byears, 1.5b gausian mean, than red giant.
White yellow - in average 10by, 1.2by gausian mean than bright or red giant
white - 1.9by+-0.3by , bright giant
white-blue - 0.5by+-0.1by, to white giant
blue+ - 0.08by to supergiant
Red giant - 2by+-0.3by than white dwarf
Bright giant - 0.2by+-0.04by than neutron star. Sometimes explodes as supernova. With certain probablity can release extra gas and become white dwarf. In case of very high angular speed can transform to binary white dwarf (low probablity). Sirius B was once dominant star in Sirius but it lost 70% of the mass while expanding to giant and during giant phase.
very bright giant and heavier stars - 2.2by+-0.2 to black hole. With certain probablity can also form neutron stars and white dwarfs.
white dwarf - almost 1000by, than black dwarf.

In the begining of galaxy large stars in galaxy core perform they lifecycle during relatively small period of time releasing heavy elements. Than other stars form from dust that remains from supernovas and from initial dust and gas..

If we want to create huge galaxy (millions of sunmasses) we can use ELite-like generation method

[Aquitaine]

uh, what is your point?

[muxec]

Dunno. Maybe it'd be cool to implement that in FO : )

[Aquitaine]

A little too big on the science and small on the gameplay value.

[Geoff the Medio]

I'd just like to see slightly more... sciency sounding star classifications:

-Stellar Nebula
-Brown Dwarf
-Red Dwarf
-Orange Main Stage
-Yellow Main Stage
-White Main Stage
-Blue Giant
-Red Giant
-Red SuperGiant
-White Dwarf
-Black Dwarf
-Neutron
-Black Hole

Younger galaxies would have more nebulae, main stage and blue giants. Older galaxies would have more red/brown dwarves, red giants and white/black dwarves, neutrons and black holes.

It would be fun to add some science-fictiony and other variety options to the above as well:

-Dysonsphere
-No Star (rogue planet(s))
-Dark Matter Nebula
-Massive Spacetime Anomaly (massive meaning it has mass, so can have stuff orbiting)

I also gather that binary and other multiple star systems have been nixed, which I think is unfortunate... but I'm not sure whether this means there can be nothing called binary stars, or if there just can't be more than one unique star in a system. If not the latter, we could add various kinds of binary star as a separate class of star... so:

-Reg Giant with Parasitic Black Hole
-Yellow-Orange Pair of Main Stages
-Main Stage with Red Dwarf
-Main Stage with White Dwarf
-Main Stage with Brown Dwarf (a planet much larger than jupiter)

(indedentally, another class of planet for really really big gassy planets would be nice)

Alternatively, I don't see why we couldn't treat a binary system as a regular system, but devote one or two of the planet slots to an additional star. The outermost planet slot could have a high chance of having a red dwarf (like Proxima Centauri) and the innermost slot could have any other kind of star. This would also easily accomdate trinary systems. Also, the same system could be used for habitable moons of gas giants... ie. treat them as separate worlds in the system.

There isn't really any "gameplay" value to star types... it's just interesting and fun for people who are interested in that kind of thing, and irrelivant for those who aren't.

[muxec]

The percentage of red dwarfs is almost independent from galaxy age.

[Geoff the Medio]

The number of red dwarfs is indepenent of galaxy age, but they're the longest "living" type of star, so there would be proportionally more of them (a higher "percentage") in an older galaxy.

[muxec]

The number nay even grow as small stars may form from dust as result of nearby supernova.... I was wrong.

[muxec]

OK. Now I finally read Shklovsky's "Universe. Life. Intelegence". The book is outdated a little (1987) but anyway it provides a lot of reliable data and simplified galaxy generation model.

Updating first post to match new data

[Impaler]

How about some means by which stars spectral class aka Color effects the desirability of the planets.

It would seem logical that Humans would want a yellow star because all our plants and animals are adapted to that type of light, if we found an otherwise perfect planet around a giant blue star spewing hard ultra-violet then we would be at a considerable disadvantage their.

Perhaps something like +1 Health metter if the star color is "Optimum" and -1 if its too far away. It would work just like the Environmental preferences for swamps/toxic/inferno ect ect.

[Geoff the Medio]

A bonus for distance from sun as a separate factor from environmental preference might be interesting. Might give some actual significance to slot position other than frequency of certain planet environments. Could be problatic though if slots are really meant to represent a certain distance away, as there's current no "empty" slot option. That is, there's no "real" reason a planet couldn't be in slot 5 if there isn't one in slots 1-4, however this seems to be how it works now. Right now you can just ignore that and say a slot can be at whatever distance, and gaps between subsequent planets are ignored.

[Manilla Moxy]

planets too close to a hot star have their atmosphere wiped out! Like mercuty, but mercury was too close to the sun, so any air got too excited and drifted off into space. But now Venus is interesting too.

If our planets were on a blue or white star, there's be no atmosphere all the way to Mars!!! So maybe we would think more Barren or Irridiated on the ones close to blue suns.

Like in Star Control 2 - the planets near the hot stars had the highest mineral count, but they were also really really hot, and would shoot all sorts of flames and lightning bolts because they were unstable planets.

The small, cold planets had almost nothing on them.


I think it would be great if the game was a bit like SC2, where you could have spheres of influence, but lots of space in between because colonies aren't good there, there are no planets, no good planets, or your colonies keep getting attacked!.

[drek]

ould be problatic though if slots are really meant to represent a certain distance away, as there's current no "empty" slot option.

Yes there is. A slot with no planet is empty (and waiting to be filled by some artificial construct, like a starbase in the orginal conception, though it so far hasn't come up). Slots 1-4 can be empty, with slot 5 filled.

Perhaps something like +1 Health metter if the star color is "Optimum" and -1 if its too far away. It would work just like the Environmental preferences for swamps/toxic/inferno ect ect.

Certain races that react to certain star colors might be interesting. ie, the Kyptonians gain +100000000000000 troop strength under the light of a yellow sun.

I don't know if we want to make *every* race (or even most races) have an optimal star.

[Geoff the Medio]

A slot with no planet is empty (and waiting to be filled by some artificial construct, like a starbase in the orginal conception, though it so far hasn't come up). Slots 1-4 can be empty, with slot 5 filled.

There should probly be some indication of what slot a planet is in on the UI then... (or did I miss that too?)

I don't know if we want to make *every* race (or even most races) have an optimal star.

Any plant-type races that produce their energy through something akin to photosythesis would probably be weakened (slowed growth, lower health) near stars with the wrong distribution of power in the EM spectrum. Perhaps any race that uses photosythesis to grow its food would have farming penalties. A race with human-like vision would have a combat disadvantage, perhaps. In any of those cases though, the races would be just as weakened by being on a planet that's in a far-out slot (meaning low insolation) as they would from the colour of the star being wrong.

Human might have a hard time near white or blue stars that produce more ultraviolet light than we're used to. (Though this is highly dependent on planet atmosphere having something like ozone no matter what the star colour...)

If there are any races that have home planets near black holes or neutron stars, the particulars of that environment might be important to their health. Magnetars (kind of neutron star) have really strong magnetic fields: "strong enough to wipe a credit card from the distance of the Sun away and strong enough to be fatal from the distance of the moon away" (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar )

[drek]

I like the idea of a frail plant race that has to care about the color of the sun:

-50 Health, -50 Farming: needs yellow sunlight
+100 health, +60 Farming if the colony is under a Yellow sun (stacks with the above penalty for a net of +50, +10)
Intolerant: -20 Health, -10 Farming if planet is not Swamp
Soil Extraction: +10 Mining to all planets

They'd grow like weeds under a yellow star, basically die everywhere else without technology. Sounds like it could make for fun gameplay--makes the race feel unique.

Other than specific races and *perhaps* terraforming costs, I'd rather planet slot and star color didn't have an effect on races. Enviroment is more than enough: after all, if a "Terran" enviroment orbits a weird star, there must be circumstances protecting the native life (either natural or in the case of terraformed worlds artifical).