Planets

Planets are large terrestrial masses that players can land on and explore. They contain many resources and several unique native ones. This article only pertains to landable planets; Gas giants are still considered planets. However, they cannot be interacted with in the same way.

Overview

Planet with a ring around it

Found orbiting a star, each system is procedurally generated and will spawn with a random amount of planets. Each planet will orbit around the sun unless it is a moon of another planet.

A planet with an atmosphere

Due to their immense size, a planet's gravity well will disrupt a Ship's ability to warp jump. Players must fly beyond this zone if they wish to warp to another star system. The exact distance away players must be to achieve this depends on the size of the planet. A planet's passive gravity well extends to roughly the equivalent of its radius away from its surface. For example, a planet that is about 350km in diameter will not allow ships to warp out unless they are further away than 175km from its surface.

Asteroids in planetary rings are similar to the ones found in gas giants

Most planets in the game are rocky worlds with little to no atmosphere. On occasion, planets will spawn with a temperate environment full of lush trees and vegetation. Others will be flooded ocean worlds with only small islands as the only refuge.

Planets can also sometimes spawn with rings. These rings are similar to those found around gas giants but are much more sparsely populated. Resources can still be gleaned from them should the player venture into them.

Surface

Lush worlds like this are rare

The surface is reached by directly flying into the planet from space. On approach, while in lightcruise, the player's ship will slow down the closer it gets to the planet. Planets are massive, even the smallest ones being dozens of kilometers in diameter. To travel quickly around them, players should use ships equipped with Lightcruise Engines.

Gravity

Most cold rocky planetoids orbit gas giants

Players will be subject to gravity when near the planet's surface. The closer they are to the surface, the stronger the effect. The force of gravity on each planet will be different; some are as high as 2+gs, while others are next to nothing. Surface gravity along with other information on planets and their star system can be found by opening the Holomap.

The exact distance that a planet's gravity well extends out to is dependent on its surface level gravity. Gravity lessens by 0.1gs every 2.4km away from the surface. This would mean that a planet of roughly 1g surface gravity would have an active gravity well distance of approximately 26.4km. This amount is achieved by adding an additional 2.4km for the final layer at 0.0gs as gravity still exists albeit very weakly. Going beyond that distance a ship will no longer be in the planet's active gravity well but will still be within its passive gravity well. Flying further than that is considered free space.

Landscape

The type of planet will determine what type of objects will spawn on its surface. All planets will naturally spawn rocks and large mounds as a baseline. Bushes and grass spawn if the planet type supports them. Should the world be temperate, large trees will appear. Alongside typical vegetation, a planet will also spawn "Monoliths." Large mounds seemingly cut into unnatural shapes; monoliths take the shapes of pyramids and cylinders.

Some planets have crater lakes on them

Geologically, a planet's terrain can be as diverse as Earth's. Some planets boast large mountain ranges, giving way to long winding canyons. Others are flat across the entire surface. Impact craters dot many planets; Some can be large enough to be seen from space. Some of these craters are large enough to support a lake system.

Once on the surface, players can explore and build as they see fit. Hovercrafts are extremely useful for traversing the terrain, provided it has adequate lift to combat the potentially high gravity. If a planet has an atmosphere, it will generate dynamic clouds moving across the sky.

Mining

Monoliths can occasionally spawn as resource deposits

Planet surfaces will vary depending on the type. Most planets will be cold dead husks with only rocks and boulders dotting the scarred surface. Regardless of their kind, they will always have many minable resources.

Resource deposits can sometimes be found underground

Most of these resource deposits will resemble brownish mounds with stripes of color, just like how they appear on asteroids. While most deposits can be found by skimming the planet's surface, other deposits appear deep underground. Players can find these deposits by using their Ore Scanner Pulse (Pressing [V] while in Terrestrial Mode).

Monoliths that spawn on the surface comprise minable resources, which can provide significantly more than a standard ground one. Once depleted, players will need to search for another one.

Gallery

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  Mass cloud formation on a world

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  A Mars-like planet

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  A verdant world with a ring around it

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  A sickly green planet

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  A Space Station close to a planet

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  A rocky moon orbiting a gas giant

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  A star System at the edge of the Galactic Halo

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  A lone plant growing on a cold dead world

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  At night, the Galaxy can be seen

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  Dawn just about to break

History

Land-able Planets have been in development for years. Before their proper implementation, planets did still exist in the game. They appeared much like gas giants: Large spherical objects that could result in death if flown into. They were pretty to look at however, that is about all they were.

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Tips

• Gravity weakens by 0.1gs every 2.4km away from a planet's surface.
• If a planet has a ring around it, players can build on top of the asteroids within.
• The cloud level for planets is 4.5km above its surface.
• All of the vegetation on planets can be picked up and thrown.
• All rocks and trees do not have collisions turned on for entities such as Ships and Hovercrafts. Players can fly through them or land on them with no obstructions.
• A planet's active gravity well will override the orientation of the artificial gravity fields of Gravity Units. Players in ships that are in atmosphere and not perfectly level with the surface may find it difficult to navigate their interiors.
• Using upward facing Gravity Units players can counteract the force of gravity on a planet to make zero G environments on the surface. This is perfect for building Hovercrafts planetside as a planet's surface makes it difficult to work on them.
• 4km/s is the fastest possible speed while traveling in a planet's atmosphere. However this is only achievable through impractical means such as extremely tiny ships or a ship whose mass is entirely devoted to Lightcruise Engines.

Trivia

• The Earth is approximately 12,756 km (at the equator) in diameter. Most planets in the Starship EVO galaxy would dwarf that easily with many terrestrial planets clocking in at +100,000 km in diameter. This would classify them as "Super-Earths".
  • Jupiter would be more at home among Starship EVO's planets with a diameter of approximately 142,984 km (at the equator).
• Planets all have their Eccentricity listed in the Holomap. Orbital eccentricity is a stat that determines a planet's orbital shape where by 0 is a perfect circle and 1 is a near perfect oval. All planets in a star system should have a eccentricity of less than 1. Any more and the planet would have left the gravitational pull of its star, becoming a rouge planet.