simonharrison

Hi David!

Playing Frontier Elite II in my teens was one of the inspirations for me to study astrophysics at university and go on to have a career in the UK space industry. I remember one of the most engaging things for me was to see the universe you so accurately created in motion using Frontier's time advance control. Seeing the planets and suns rise and set was thrilling and contributed greatly to the immersion. It was also educational as it served as a very 3D demonstration of celestial mechanics! Obviously time advancement won't be possible in multiplayer mode but I would so love to see it back.

So my question is, would you consider supporting time advancement in single player? If not, since I believe you are going to the trouble of modelling celestial bodies accurately (including their motion presumably), how would this be visible to the player, since with time running at normal speed orbital motion would be almost imperceptible?

Astrophysics question. We know you are modelling various star types, planets, moons, asteroid belts and rings. Will you also be modelling any of the following?

Comets

Kuiper belt

Oort cloud

Quasars

Black holes

Protoplanets and protosystems (i.e. star/planet systems in mid-formation with accretion disc of coalescing dust and gas)

Active binary star systems where one star is pulling hot gasses of the other into an accretion disc?

Maybe some of the exotic systems e.g pulsar systems, could interfere with onboard systems e.g. the scanner?

Thanks, Simon