10-17-2016, 09:56 AM
(10-16-2016, 09:25 PM)Mandella Wrote: Either I've got a bug, or maybe I'm just being clueless here, but I've built a Toroid station in low earth orbit that when I switch to inside view to place my buildings I get a light/dark cycle which seems, surprise surprise, to coincide with the spin of the station.
Not quite — the light/dark cycle coincides with the orbit of the station around the Earth. About half the time, your station is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, so your mirrors have no significant light to reflect.
We have to play a little loose with the timescale of the simulation, but basically one simulated day is about 30 seconds. In low Earth orbit, you're in darkness for about 45 minutes out of every 90 (in real life), which would work out to a seizure-inducing 0.9 out of every 1.8 seconds in the game. We didn't want to do that to our players, so we stretch it out.
This will cause your residents to complain (people don't have much use for a 45-minute night!), and of course it also affects thermal balance and power production (if you're using solar panels).
So, yeah, mirrors aren't much use in a low orbit... they work great in a high orbit, though!
Joe Strout
Lead Developer, High Frontier