Solar-Sim Devlog

Solar-Sim has been taken offline for routine server maintenance. When the server comes back up, I will be making some changes that require Solar-Sim to be taken offline again from time to time.

The biggest change I’m making this weekend is to Solar-Sim’s frame of reference. Solar-Sim currently uses an “Earth Mean Equator” frame of reference. I originally chose this because that was the only frame of reference available for the star catalog I used to build Solar-Sim’s starfield background. While this made the planets line up nicely with the constellations, flying around was a bit odd because the Solar System was essentially tilted 23 degrees.

The frame of reference is changing to use the plane of the ecliptic. This means I’ll have to reconstruct the starfield background, but your ship won’t have to be tilted as much anymore when you travel from planet to planet.

Another change happening this weekend is the appearance of some moons and planets will change. I’m conducting a review of all texture maps used by Solar-Sim, and any that are found to be copyrighted will be removed.