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Forum » SpaceEngine » General Discussions » Orbit an object
Orbit an object
PhilDate: Thursday, 02.01.2014, 17:58 | Message # 1
Space Tourist
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United Kingdom
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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.
 
apenpaapDate: Thursday, 02.01.2014, 18:26 | Message # 2
World Builder
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Antarctica
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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.



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HarbingerDawnDate: Thursday, 02.01.2014, 19:01 | Message # 3
Cosmic Curator
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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.



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PhilDate: Thursday, 02.01.2014, 23:15 | Message # 4
Space Tourist
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United Kingdom
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Thanks for your replies.

Yes, just to clarify, here's an example of the movement I want to do. It's in Starry Night Pro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ybDxqU9Co&t=2m57s (2:57 - 3:10)

The way this is done in SNP is that the object (Eg a star or planet) is centred and 'locked' (which has a different meaning in SNP). Then you zoom out as far as you wish, and simply use the WSAD keys to 'orbit' around at a fixed distance from the central object. In the example, the orbit is very far, moving through galaxies. But it works the same if you zoom to just a few thousand km from the object.

SNP also had something like the 'spaceship' movement, so you could set your speed and 'orbit' around the object without holding a key down. You could also achieve smooth starts and finishes to the movement. Very easy and intuitive.

Whereas in SE, I can't work out how to use 'tracking' mode at all. According to the manual it's supposed to fix an object in the centre whilst you look around for your next object, but:

· the WSAD keys do not work intuitively. 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, and often is some kind of curved path. I'll try to correct with one of the other keys, and get some seemingly random movement from them too.

· the mouse 'look' by dragging is completely disabled when you track an object, so you can't even use your normal navigation method to look for your next object.

This is all very weird, considering that orbiting must be the number one thing people want to do when they find an interesting object. I don't understand why you can't just enable 'tracking' and then hit the A or D keys to orbit laterally, or the W or S keys to orbit vertically. Seems like a no brainer to me!?

Edited by Phil - Friday, 03.01.2014, 10:31
 
HarbingerDawnDate: Friday, 03.01.2014, 04:21 | Message # 5
Cosmic Curator
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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.



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PhilDate: Friday, 03.01.2014, 11:42 | Message # 6
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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