Wouldn't Lagrangian points be easy to program?

[Szkeptik]

They say Lagrangian points can't be done because the game can only simulate one gravity well at a time. In my opinion this is exactly the reason why it would be easy to program.

Since the game always has a single gravity well active for an object at a time, why couldn't you program a gravity well without a planet texture that would have a fixed gravity radius and a gravitic force of zero. It would be like a zero mass singularity. After this you just need to put these where the Lagrangian points should be with the radii they should have based on what size and mass bodies they are "orbiting".

These wouldn't be "true" Lagrangian points but they would act in a similar fashion.

[Xune]

I've just posted what amounts to the exact same thing in a different thread. It's an interesting idea (if I do say so myself) and I believe Kerbol is, or was setup like this; a bodyless point of gravity, although it was static.

[Zool]

That's not at all how lagrange points work, they do not act as gravity wells. The game can simulate lagrange points easily, you just add up all the gravitational forces each frame, but solving for the position of the spacecraft at any given point in the future would require numeric integration, there are no shortcuts like there are for two bodies. This would mean that the orbit map view wouldn't be able to predict your trajectory accurately. If you can solve the n-body problem without numeric integration I'm sure the dev's would be happy to add lagrange points, and you'll get a nobel prize to boot!

Edited September 15, 2012 by Zool

[Szkeptik]

That's not at all how lagrange points work, they do not act as gravity wells.

I said gravity wells with zero force. I also said the wouldn't be true LAgrange points, but it doesn't matter as long as they are functionally similar in game.

[Arrowstar]

If they have zero force, they're not true anythings. Might as well not even bother if they won't influence the state of the spacecraft.

[Szkeptik]

If they have zero force, they're not true anythings. Might as well not even bother if they won't influence the state of the spacecraft.

These would have zero force but it would be artificially streched out to a certain radius, creating a zero strenght gravity field.

If you decrease your speed in this area you can stay in the same point indefinitely.

Edited September 15, 2012 by Szkeptik

[chrt]

These would have zero force but it would be artificially streched out to a certain radius, creating a zero strenght gravity field.

If you decrease your speed in this area you can stay in the same point indefinitely.

The spheres of influence aren't defined by a fixed radius, what sphere of influence you're in is determined by which body effects you the most with its gravitational force. If a body has zero mass, the radius of its sphere of influence is zero.

[sal_vager]

Szkeptik, lagrange points cannot be done properly.

There is no point in having an incomplete, broken and incorrect feature such as this, the conic patch system KSP uses simply cannot simulate lagrange points.

An object can leave a real lagrange point without expending much energy, if the points were faked with empty SOI's then that would not be the case, making things like this impossible.